MysTech Newsletter, June 2023
Dear Friends,
In just under two months, MysTech will present its 7th annual conference, in Wilton, New Hampshire. This year’s conference is a milestone in Mystech’s journey from an idea to reality. Seven years ago, it was a necessity to start an organization to bring together people working on vital issues of our collective human future through spiritual science and the development of a new technology known as Mechanical Occultism. Today, we can see a movement exists in America, and the conference is one of the fruits.
This year’s exciting lineup of presenters is the best yet, including: Michael Howard, artist and author speaking on the Resonance of Moral Qualities: A Path to Resonance and Moral Technology. Dr. Linda Gadbois, Spiritual Scientist, speaking on Quantum Entanglement and Wave Particle Duality: “A Scientific Basis for Understanding the Relationship between the Higher and Lower Mind”. Jeff Volk, cymatic researcher, Expanding Our Cymatic Perception: A Living Metaphor. Walter Alexander, medical journalist, The New Scientific Revolution. Monique Pommier, author of Harmony, the Heartbeat of Creation, will be speaking on Resonance – Vibrant Ground of Our Being and Divine Instrument of Becoming. And there are many other speakers that you won’t want to miss. Check out the full line up of speakers at events.mystech.org
Please join us in person this year. We will have artistic sessions in Eurythmy and drawing, plus live music. There will be plenty of booths to peruse and people to meet and collaborate with. For those who can’t make it, everything will be online where you can watch it live or at a time that’s most convenient for you.
Like last year, we’ll have a drawing for a Lautsänger headphone for all those signing up for the conference, an 800-dollar value. Also, you’ll want to check out our new venture, Tonalitá, which will be the official US Distributor of Lautsänger products. Read further on in the newsletter for more information.
This will be our last Newsletter for awhile so I hope to see you all at the conference.
Have a wonderful summer,
Frank Dauenhauer
Managing Director, CFAE
Approaching
The
Living world
An introductory look at cymatics
By Ralf Tita, PhD
What are the fundamental principles from which the diverse forms of life emerge and how can they be approached step by step in the phenomenon and experienced artistically? Dealing with these questions led in the fall of 2015 to the founding of the “School for Kymatics”, a free association of scientists and artists. This was preceded in the fall of 2014 by the 1st World Cymatics Congress in Allerheiligen (Black Forest), where about 170 experts and interested people from 16 nations met to exchange ideas, practice and experiment together artistically. The desire to continue the joint work that arose there, provided the impulse to found the School for Cymatics. Our concern is to make the fundamentally new approach of cymatics accessible to all interested people in the manifold fields of scientific and artistic life. Through courses, seminars, lectures, and trainings it should be possible for the participants to get to know the new scientific method and to work with it independently. For this reason, in this article we would like to look at the gradual emergence of cymatics and its pioneers, especially Hans Jenny, and initially point to the methodology that has recently emerged from it.
“The art of painting with tones….” These are the words of the poet, Christoph M. Wieland, that were chosen by Ernst Florens Friedrich Chladni (1756 – 1827) to be the opening words of his book, Theory of Sound, published in 1787. In that book, he explained for the first time what had been unknown as a phenomenon until then. On a glass plate sprinkled with sand, well-ordered harmonic shapes formed when the plate was set in vibration by means of a violin bow. The resulting shapes are widely known today under the term “Chladni sound figures”.
With this experiment, Chladni achieved great renown among the higher social classes of the time, so that he was even able to demonstrate his discovery to Napoleon. Napoleon immediately announced a competition to clarify the phenomenon, which was won by the young mathematician Marie-Sophie Germain (1776 – 1831). She showed in a mathematical derivation that oscillation patterns with areas of high activity (oscillation bellies) and areas of complete rest (oscillation nodes) occur on the plate. The sand accumulates at the vibration node lines, while the areas of the vibration bellies remain free. This is in no way a static process that takes place once, rather, the sand is in constant motion as the vibration form is created in the movement.
About thirty years after Chladni’s presentation, the famous physicist Michael Faraday (1791 – 1867) observed that the order of fine, lightweight, particles does not, however, depend on the motion of the plate, but rather on the motion of the air above the plate. Thus, light particles float well-ordered above the plate at the vibrational bellies, i.e., at the places of highest activity, and coarser particles arrange themselves as described before, following gravity, at the vibrational nodes. For a long time, it was thought that the phenomenon had been grasped in its entirety and could be described comprehensively in mathematical terms. It turned out, however, that even in a vacuum, where no air movement can occur above the plate, the sand will, nevertheless, come into a limited form formation. Those forces, which have a share in this form formation, still cannot be named by physics. Even this simple experiment shows how essential the study of cymatics and its phenomena is, for a gradual approach to reality. There is, of course, an abundance of other phenomena which, when observed carefully, confront us with questions which cannot be solved by the hitherto established, materialistic habits of thought.
In 1904, the English singer Margaret Watts Hughes published a book entitled The Eidophone – Voice Figures (Geometrical and Natural Forms Produced by Vibrations of the Human Voice).[1] In this book she introduces the Eidophone, which she developed as early as 1885 and with which she produced numerous sound figures. The Eidophone is a jug-like instrument that is covered with a membrane and into which one sings from the side via a tube. Similar to Chladni, she sprinkled sand and various powders onto the membrane, but also applied paste-like substances (e.g. glycerine, mixed with paint). The excitation of the membrane was now no longer done mechanically with the violin bow, as with Chladni’s plates, but by the air column, which is set into highly differentiated movements by the human voice when singing. On the membrane, in addition to forms that correspond to Chladni’s sound figures, highly complex shapes emerge, many of which resemble forms from nature. Margaret Watts Hughes developed a method by which she could capture these images. She moved a glass disk over the membrane while singing into the Eidophone; in the process, the sound shapes of the paste-like liquids transferred to the glass disk, where they were subsequently dried. Margaret Watts Hughes used these glass discs to decorate the windows in the “Home for Little Boys” orphanage she founded in London.[2] She acquired such mastery with this instrument that she could form flowers and leaves, even tree-like structures purely from the human voice. Here the question arises, what other forces are at work through the human voice that such complex structures, known from the shaping of nature, can form. We want to pursue this question in the following.
Although Margaret Watts Hughes presented her discoveries to the Royal Society, and also presented them in a scientific publication, her method fell into oblivion only a few years after her death. It was not until a good 100 years later that the principle of the Eidophone was taken up by Hans Jenny and patented as the Tonoscope, probably without knowing the work of Margaret Watts Hughes. He encouraged the use of the Tonoscope, especially in schools for deaf children to give them a perceptive access to their own voice.
The great pioneer of Cymatics, who also coined the name Cymatic, derived from the Greek word kyma-wave, is thus the physician and painter Hans Jenny (1904 – 1972) from Dornach (Switzerland). He is the first who systematically turned to the mentioned phenomena, investigated them in numerous experiments, ordered them and penetrated them intellectually; the abundance of the phenomena investigated is to be particularly emphasized. Before we turn to some of them, we want to take a short look at his life.
Hans Jenny had already observed nature intensively in his childhood, with a particular fondness for birds. On one of his regular ornithological excursions, he discovered the first Goetheanum under construction. Fascinated by the architecture, he wanted to learn more about it and, at the age of 15, he bought the books Theosophy and Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment by Rudolf Steiner. With his parents he took part in a guided tour at the first Goetheanum, led by Rudolf Steiner. In Rudolf Steiner, he had found a personality to whom he remained inwardly faithful all his life, as his wife Maria Jenny reports.[3] The love of nature and intense observation are basic motifs of his life. “His power of observation was quite enormous,” his widow said in an interview.[4] One gets an idea of this gift when one looks at his “animal landscapes”[5]. In these pictures, one can experience how Hans Jenny succeeds in capturing the animal in its wholeness, within itself and with its environment. Jenny carried the motifs of the pictures inside for a long time, sometimes for years, before he painted them in a relatively short time with the highest concentration. Again and again, he observed intensively and noted his observations in his diary. In his mid-40s, for example, he wrote on March 18, 1948: “Today at the zoo looked at the peacock. Each peacock eye is the whole color peacock. This purely colored dabbed on: is a peacock’s eye; the whole color peacock is repeated in the feather. The peacock, viewed purely in color, stands before one in so many ways. The peacock eyes arise only gradually. In the feathers of the birds the metamorphic being is flowing in colors and color forms, in drawings and so on. It flows; thus, it is completely evident in the change. The peacock’s head is itself again the whole peacock, subsumed and concentrated. Drawn together it merges, but it is implied. The neck of a dazzling blue, golden-green shields come over the back. In these central a ray blue surrounded by copper; gradually unfolded eyes. The widest are the most complete. Deep violet blue, magnificent bright blue, copper, golden green: it is the whole color peacock in a color mirror, as a pure color image. What colored the whole peacock is effective on each feather, but only painting, only as a color image. This painting, reflecting, shining, shining off, wonderfully inking (color ink of spiritual kind) is the origin of the animal colors. It can be traced exactly how feathers of the same color appear on the peacock, dressing neck, back, chest as the same, and how they become dissimilar: i.e., uniting the elements of the total peacock in themselves. On the neck they are all blue, on the head all deep blue, on the back all golden-green shields, they are of the same kind and on the whole of the same uniform coloration. They have only one coloration. Then come the feathers, which are not only unicolored, but multicolored; that is, the totality of the colored also appears after them: they contain all colors. In the individual zones all nuances, intermediate and transitional forms. Whole feathers corresponding to the whole animal, a ray to the single peacock eye. The wheel-beating peacock therefore presents the following. It is to be seen as a whole being, spherically encompassing in itself many individual beings, all of which are images of the whole. A color sphere with large color zones and in it many individual spheres with color zones, which are all in smallness images of the whole. A cosmic principle.”[6]
Here we can experience how intensively Hans Jenny could immerse himself in observation, “disappear completely,” as his wife called it[7], thus withdrawing himself in such a way that the phenomenon can express itself in its entirety. Out of the concrete, the materialized, he sought the whole, the idea that forms the individual. His paintings themselves are acts of research, pursuing the question of how the animal being is modified according to the forces and tendencies of its environment, but also how the animal affects and helps to shape its environment. “The concordances between animal and environment, as they have been continually worked out in Jenny’s work, are real, harmonious experiences which can only spring from relations of voice and tension. The animal is inseparable from its environment; it has arisen from it, as it has arisen from it. Nevertheless, it becomes a dungeon for him, which closes every further horizon, and thus makes every further development impossible. Such tensions permeate his [Jenny’s] animal paintings. He painted the magnificent togetherness of animal and environment without concealing the sacrifice and suffering of the animal soul. His animals want to become more than they are. However, it is not the individual animal that can want this, but only the animal group soul inseparable with its species. Since Jenny’s animal paintings more or less presuppose a real encounter with this, he can never fall prey to the temptation of portraying an individual animal. This figure, which does not fully enter into sensuality, is probably the real model for Jenny, which approached him at different times.”[8]
Jenny thus follows Goethe’s path of research, who also sought the unifying whole in the multiplicity of concrete appearance. In addition to the artistic examination, Hans Jenny summarizes his animal observations in a thought-provoking way in his extensive work “Der Typus” (The Type).[9]
How consciously Jenny follows the path of the scientist and shapes it by his deeds is shown by the following diary entry of January 5, 1945; it precedes, so to speak, his public work as a scientist. “All science, indeed all our thinking, is in riddles, consists of riddles; our knowledge is only a repetition and ordering of riddles. But nowhere does the essence of things name itself. […] We use X-rays; we do not know their essence. We x-ray the lungs; we do not know their essence. We observe shadows, which we relate to disease processes. We do not know the essence of tuberculosis. […] We do not know the light, the sun. We have defined and ordered everything in a scientific, rational way, but we do not know its essence. We keep on rolling the problem of the essence, we keep on assuming new primordial elements, building blocks, elementary parts, etc., and we keep on losing more and more what we actually wanted to explain out of sight, out of experience, [so] that at the bottom of this whole civilization tangle there is complete fog, absolute darkness: that comes out for it again as a total appearance: in the complete bankruptcy, in the complete bankruptcy of the civilization. It leads from one work of destruction to another, it is incapable of solving even one social problem, it makes one scientific fiasco after another. Finally, no science knows what it is dealing with. […] Now up! These riddles must be solved! Otherwise, humanity is no longer possible, only the decline. […] The riddle, the mystery attracts us, it draws amazement, admiration, devotion, awe, love from us. Not limits of knowledge per se, but limits of understanding we experience in the ignorabimus, but the understanding is only one of our tools, not the tool, but only an auxiliary tool. Thus, humanity is at the beginning of new ways, new means, new research, at the beginning of cognition, at the beginning of a spirit cognition. Our whole being must participate in cognition […] We must penetrate things, sink into them, and draw out of the world what lives in it: it speaks, not we; it is it, not we, which then expresses itself. Clean your tools, strengthen them, purify them, and the world will sanctify them by revelation.”[10]
Early on, Hans Jenny focused his attention on the phenomenon of repetition. We encounter this principle in all areas of animate and inanimate nature. If we think of a tree, not only the leaves are thousandfold repetitions of the same structure, but also every branch fork, every shoot, but also every annual ring, yes, every wood fiber, the blossoms, every petal, up to the individual cells are constant repetitions of a specific principle. The repetitive formation appears to us particularly clearly in the articulated, segmental design of the vertebrates, the arthropods, and the higher worms; it is the predominant pictorial principle of these animal phyla. The formation of these animal organisms takes place in the development or genesis of the form of the primordial vertebrae or segments. The same formation is repeated in the head-tail direction, and, despite all modification in later development, the periodic construction remains a dominant organizing principle in these organisms. The whole formation of the shape of these animals, but also their movement – just think of the gait of a millipede – has a predominant rhythmic element.
We do not want to go further into the manifold expressions of the periodic here, be it in the structure of the body, e.g., in the arrangement of the cells, the course of the fibers in the muscle, etc., or even in the manifold rhythmic processes. Also, in the inanimate nature and the physical phenomena, finally, periodic processes always appear to us in every sub-area.
Hans Jenny turned to these periodic processes from 1958 and began to set up experiments to approach these phenomena systematically. He starts with Chladni’s oscillating plates, but uses the technical possibilities of his time. For the vibration excitation he no longer uses a violin bow, but electromechanical components, as they are also installed in a loudspeaker. This enables him to freely determine the excitation frequency, i.e., the number of vibrations per second, and to couple the sound for any length of time. Now the processes can be studied in detail; as the sound passes through different frequencies, manifold forms are formed, with sections of apparent chaos in between. The forms follow the basic structure, that the higher the tone is, the more finely the patterns form, also the volume, the amplitude has an influence on the form and the movement of the sand grains.
If we study the movements closely, we recognize how small vortices, or various accumulations form, which however, continuously exchange material among themselves. Everything is in constant motion, carried by the rhythmic movement of the plate and yet creates clear forms, shapes, in this movement. This trinity of shape, movement and rhythm will be encountered more often, but let us stay for a moment with the phenomena that are revealed in various experiments.
We spoke at the beginning about Michael Faraday, who pointed out the different behavior of coarse and fine, or heavy and light, particles in connection with the Chladni plates. If we do not sprinkle sand, but lycopodium, the fine seeds of the lycopodium plant, on the vibrating plate, we can indeed observe a completely different behavior. At first, small heaps are formed, which suck in the material of the environment at the lower edge of the heap, directly above the plate, and release it from the center of the heap back to the outside. If we slowly increase the volume (amplitude) of the sound, the suction at the edge increases to such an extent that small fountains appear at the surface. At certain frequencies, these ejections begin to move in a circle, sometimes clockwise, sometimes in the opposite direction over the surface of the cluster – involuntarily, the image of the sun’s surface with its prominences arises inside the observer.
Jenny experimented with a variety of different substances and mixtures and found that there are big differences. Liquids behave completely differently from solids. Viscous mush forms spatial structures that are in constant internal circulation. Water responds with wave patterns that often have star-shaped, flower-like manifestations.
We already suspect here the diversity of the phenomena. Jenny writes: “We have before us the creating and the created, the oscillating, the sounding and the oscillation-generated, the sound-generated. Now this does not prepare itself so simply and harmlessly. The happening of the wave process takes place in complicated relations, in interferences, resonances, turbulences, in harmonies, consonance, in disharmony, in dissonance, in frequency spectra, amplitude relations, etc. In this sphere of the manifold creation, the observer moves. It must be proved whether, in this abundance, basic and primal phenomena, from which ‘everything’ can be grasped, can be found.”[11]
If we look at the phenomena described so far, we can find two fundamental poles. On the one side the structural, figural, the shape, the form; and on the other side the dynamic, flowing, the movement; the whole produced and maintained by the periodic or rhythmic being. These three appear in every oscillation phenomenon as a unity; even if sometimes one of the three elements comes more to the fore, the others are always present, even necessary. Jenny summarizes it in this way: “In a vibration process and in a vibration effect, there always appear figural, structural elements, but also kinetic and dynamic processes; the whole shows periodic nature, which generates and sustains everything. The three areas, the periodic as basic area, with the two poles – figure and dynamic – always appear as one. It is quite impossible to take away one or the other; it is not possible to take away at all without the thing becoming extinct. Thus, one cannot enumerate first, second, third, but can only say: appearing threefold and yet one; presenting itself as one and yet threefold.”[12] Thus Jenny calls this trinity a basic or primordial phenomenon; henceforth, he calls it the Triadic Primordial Phenomenon. Once this step of cognition has been accomplished and the observer has trained himself on the cymatic processes, this triadic primordial phenomenon appears manifold in the world.
Jenny always sought contact with the scientists of various disciplines of his time, among them Werner Heisenberg and Manfred von Ardenne. Jenny writes: “One can gain the Triadic Primordial Phenomenon as an experiential idea in histology and cell physiology, in morphology, biology and functional science; but equally in geology and mineralogy; in atomic physics and astronomy, etc.”[13] He goes a step further when he writes: “Contact with artists, sociologists, psychologists, lawyers and historians has shown us that not only the aspect of general periodicity, but also the view of a triadic model of the world – trinity of shape, wave and force – has validity in these fields. Rhythms of history; resonances, interferences, standing, continuous waves in human relations; the wave-like up-and-down surging of memories, thoughts and affects in a periodic way, poetry, and music, all these are topics that showed themselves to us in conversations with numerous personalities and the illumination of the triadic primordial phenomenon. […] But it should be emphasized that these references are not metaphors or analogies, but the recognition of homologous systems.”[14]
Hans Jenny concludes the first volume of Cymatics in 1967 with the words “Again and again and yet anew, the cymatic procedure reveals the triadic primordial phenomenon as which man can grasp and comprehend himself.” [15]
It remains for us to pursue the question posed at the outset as to why the human voice is capable of generating significantly more complex cymatic processes than is possible with technical equipment. Jenny writes about this:
“Methodos [the ancient Greek word] actually means ‘going after’. We go after the larynx, which potentially encompasses in its capacity the whole cymatics, thus is also a primordial organ, or better – to name the relevant category here, in the true, real sense – is the primordial word. So, what is the primordial word? This is the one on which we direct ourselves as on a mysteriousness, to which we try to approach methodically in cymatics, to which we want to consecrate ourselves under use of all looking and listening powers of judgment, emerging from the foundations of modern natural sciences.
We are not chasing after a phantom, that is for sure, but we direct our powers of perception to the organism of speech, and also to the organism of hearing, which is uniformly connected with it, both of which reveal an almost all-embracing mysteriousness. We move towards a creative world, towards a world-creating power. With this alone – with the creative – for the researcher, for the artist, for every living human being an element is given, in which he can breathe, live, form, work. We do not dither and hesitate: Will something come out? Will the riddles be solved? Will we get through alive? How will this adventure end? We are in the reality of the riddles; in them we become; man is not, he becomes with ever fuller and clearer consciousness. (He who grasps the thought of development vividly will not be able to assume that human beings already exist; he will rather notice that human beings first ‘become’ human beings). If he then looks back on the grandeur of the past, he does so in independence and self-reliance. But then he feels a real resonance in the admiration and veneration of those harmonious world pictures; after all, he carries the new cosmos in his heart as the mystery of the primordial word urging to revelation. Thus, we cast a methodical foresight on further cymatic research.”[16] With these bequeathed lines, Hans Jenny closes the second volume of Cymatics, published in the year of his death, 1972. We can take this quote as a legacy and a guiding star towards a contemporary path of research in cymatics.
Further reading:
Hans Jenny, Cymatics – A Study of Wave Phenomena, MACROmedia Publishing.
Atmani: Cymatics Volume 1 – Introduction to The Basic Conditions Of Contemporary World and Human Considerations, Mani Verlag, Hirschhorn, 2015.
Atmani / Peter Daniell Porsche: The Tone of the Earth and the Tone of Man, Mani Verlag, Hirschhorn 2013.
Footnotes:
[1] Margaret Watts Hughes, The Eidophon – Voice Figures (Geometrical and Natural Forms Produced by Vibrations of the Human Voice), Reprint, Mani Verlag, Hirschhorn, 2013.
[2] Voice Figures, The Spectator Archive. The Spectator. August 29, 1891.
[3] Michaela Spaar: Auf der Suche nach der formbildenden Kraft – Zum 100. Geburtstag von Hans Jenny, Das Goetheanum, Nr. 31-32/2004
[4] Ibid.
[5] Hans Jenny, Tierlandschaften “Animal Landscapes” – MACROmedia Publishing.
[6] Unpublished diary from the estate of Hans Jenny.
[7] According to an interview in the TV Documentary by Reinhard Eichelbeck, Dr. Jenny’s Klangfiguren – Die formbildende Kraft der Schwingung, ZDF, 1991.
[8] Don Vollen, Die gemeinsame Quelle von Kunst und Wissenschaft im Werke Hans Jenny, in Hans Jenny, Tierlandschaften – Raffael-Verlag, Ittigen, 1992.
[9] Hans Jenny, Der Typus, Natura-Naturata, Dornach, 1954.
[10] From the diary of Hans Jenny, quoted from Hans Jenny, Tierlandschaften – Raffael-Verlag, Ittigen, 1992.
[11] Hans Jenny, Cymatic – A Study of Wave Phenomena, MACROmedia Publishing, p. 124f. This translated edition includes the first volume published in 1967 and the second volume published in 1972.
[12] Ibid, p. 117.
[13] Ibidem, p. 118.
[14] Ibidem p. 121.
[15] Ibidem p. 121.
[16] Ibidem p. 274f.
Dr. Ralf Tita holds an PhD in engineering and worked as an R&D consultant in industrial printing and medical device technology. Since 2009 he is with the “House of Singing”, (Hirschhorn Germany) which was founded by Atmani in 2000 as an artistic and scientific research and education center. He organized the First World Cymatics Congress in Germany in 2014 and is part of the faculty of the “School of Cymatics”. He is the publisher of the Mani Verlag and responsible for the product management and production in the Lautsänger GmbH.
Movie Review
The
Seer
and the
Unseen
By Leslie Markley
Counterbalancing: A place so quiet you can hear the breathing of the earth
A 2019 film called The Seer and the Unseen takes us on a most unusual journey into Iceland, a place of tidy homes and volcanic scenery that is both harsh and spectacularly beautiful. And while the unseeable forces of modernization may treat volcanic rock as merely an obstacle needing to be cleared and paved, others see it differently, especially, the “hidden folk” who live there. In 2012, a group of these invisible occupants of the land (nature spirits, elves, or Huldufólk as they are called in the local language) rose up in distress when a project threatened to bulldoze one of their communities. In desperation, they called upon a human friend to help them.
Ragnhildur Jónsdóttir, ‘Ragga’, tells the interviewer in the film that she has been a “seer” since early childhood. Her parents, she explains, took her seriously when she described seeing beings and things that were invisible to others. Why? Because they felt that she was too young to be simply imagining the many details she described. And perhaps it was not hard for them because the Huldufólk are such a deep and ingrained belief within the culture. Whether it was destiny or the benevolence of her upbringing, Ragga never lost her ability to see into that world, and now, she is often called upon to act as an intermediary with the beings of the land prior to commencement of a construction project.
After being contacted by the elves in 2012, Jónsdóttir, petitioned the Icelandic government to move a planned road construction project, so as not to disturb a particular lava bed which was home to a community of the Huldufólk, and most importantly to them, the location of a place of worship, akin to a chapel or cathedral for humans. This holy site was in a large lava boulder that lay directly in the intended pathway of bulldozers, giant shovels, and other earth-moving equipment. Although she was the only one to petition on behalf of the elves, there were four other environmental-protection groups that also petitioned the court, but the court did not respond. Instead, the project was allowed to move forward.
The day of confrontation arrives at Galghraun Lava Field which, according to those protesting, belongs to the Icelandic people, wildlife and Huldufolk.
Worker: “You are on an active construction site.”
Protester: “No, we are in a nature preserve.”
Then the police move in, and the arrests begin…a familiar story, but not the end.
At one time, the movie explains, modern road creation was seen as a symbol of the future and valued for connecting the country. As recently as 150 years ago there were only horse carts. But now, some road construction is hard to justify, seeming rather to benefit certain parties above others. The movie suggests that it was this kind of thinking – doing things that are not necessary – that led to the 2008 economic disaster, which struck Iceland early and hard. The country (for all intents and purposes) went bankrupt and the creditors started circling the island like sharks. Prior to the crash, in the early years of this century, Iceland wanted to become rich like other countries, taking the free market of capitalism as their main motto. Access to credit was unprecedented. Banks were offering loans to do anything/everything: buy cars, houses, etc. Communities competed for people, built attractions, roads, houses, apartment buildings – all on borrowed money. Immigrants were flooding into the country. And then came 2008. In financial language, it is said: “Iceland entered the death cycle for 10 quarters.” In the language of an observer in the movie: “the Invisible hand of the market turned into an invisible guillotine.” When the banks failed, 3 million Kroner mortgages became 6 million Kroner mortgages overnight. There were massive bankruptcies.
The viewer is asked to consider: what is that money? And the answer suggested is that it is no more visible than the elf world.
As Ragga’s husband replies, when asked if he believes his wife sees elves, “ there are many things that people believe in that cannot be seen.”
Is this a tale of “Elemental Beings”? Of clairvoyant capacity that once existed widely in humanity? We may have heard that the old way of seeing (atavistic clairvoyance) is not appropriate for the requirements of the future. But where it exists and is not denied, can it not serve to anchor one end of a bridge that is constructed out of the knowledge we have attained in the intervening centuries? Do we not know that each encroachment brings an end to some part of nature? Were the “rational” environmental groups any less, or more, “right” than Ragga and the elves?
The story takes an interesting turn, and finally we listen as the Seer tells her granddaughter:
In Iceland there are places so quiet you do not even hear the birds. Only your own breathing and the breathing of the earth. It is by listening to this silence that it becomes possible to see the elves.
We need these silent places. More valuable than anything else. To hear ourselves. To see life itself.
The Seer and the Unseen
Directed by Sara Dosa • Documentary • With Ragnhildur Jonsdottir • 2019 • 89 minutes
https://www.theseerandtheunseen.com/home
The full movie, though not widely available, may be seen here: ( https://www.ovid.tv/videos/the-seer-and-the-unseen) with a free introductory subscription.
The movie refers to the 2008 Financial Crisis. See below for additional information. The cryptocurrency aspect is an interesting modern technology impact.
A video retrospective: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXlONBAOea8 this says they started investing in cryptocurrency
In 2018 this tells us that decision is risky: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/cryptocurrency-iceland-economy-bitcoin-data-centres
They were targeted again by crypto crooks in 2019 https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/11/the-big-bitcoin-heist
They started turning away crypto miners: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-07/iceland-reduces-power-to-heavy-users-denies-bitcoin-miners
Doing fairly well at the moment: https://www.chamber.is/reports/icelandic-economy-q2-2023
Events
MysTech's 7th Annual Conference
AUGUST 9, 10, 11, 12
AT HIGH MOWING'S
PINE HILL WALDORF SCHOOL
WILTON, NEW HAMPSHIRE
Resonance as a bridge between the
technical and the spiritual
“The nature of the etheric and the sentient bodies is based on… spiritual tone and spiritual vibrations. The etheric body is lower than the astral body, but the activity exercised in the etheric body stands higher than the activity of the astral body.” –Rudolf Steiner
Please join us for this year’s exciting hybrid conference, both live and online, where we’ll dive deep into technology, spiritual science, and our present and future challenges before us.
Once again The Mysteries of Technology Presents:
Distinguished speakers
Fascinating topics
Applying Spiritual Science in life!
Education is our mission. Technologies developed out of deep spiritual research is our goal. This conference will be an event you won’t want to miss. Join us in person and meet with the presenters and your peers. Form lasting relationships and further the work of moral technology through newly formed collaborations. Join us online and be a part of the conversation just as if you were there.
Come in Person and meet the Conference Speakers:
Walter Alexander: The New Scientific Revolution
Jeff Volk: Expanding Our Cymatic Perception
Gopi Vijaya, Ph.D.: From Atoms to the Avogadro Number
Monique Pommier, PhDE: Resonance-Vibrant ground of our being and divine instrument of becoming.
Ralf Tita, PhD: Fundamentals of Cymatics
Harald Hobelsberger: Aspects of Listening
John Rollison: Human Resonance
- And many more…
Save Your Place! Register Now.
MYSTECH CONFERENCE 2023
UPCOMING WEBINAR
July 2
Aaron French with host Andrew Linnell – Sunday, July 9, 2023, 2 pm ET. (11 am PT, 8 pm CET)
Rudolf Steiner as Philosopher of Technics
PAST PROGRAMS TO WATCH
June 11
Uwe Buermann with host Andrew Linnell
The Polarities Of The Internet
This Webinar Will Take You On A Journey To Discover The Polarities Of The Internet. We Will Start With The Technological Basis Of Modern Computers, Chips Made Out Of Silicon That I Call “Ahrimanic Water.” After That, We Will Take A Look At Cyberspace And Its Impact, Especially On Children And Young Adults.
May 21
John Roland Penner with host Andrew Linnell
The Robot Who Could Paint And Other Modern Fairy Tales
How Can We Assess Artificial Intelligence (Aka Applied Statistics) And The Externalization Of Thought? What Is The Turing Test? Who Are The Players — OpenAI, Ray Kurzweil, Jaron Lanier, And John Searle’s Chinese Room? What Is The Difference Between Strong AI And Weak AI? Memory Vs. Storage. What Is The Difference Between Representation Thought (Kantian Critical Idealism) And Grasping A Thought In The Goethean Sense? The Experience Of Observing Your Own Thinking Vs. Machine Representation.
New Endeavor
Tonalitá
A new business venture that brings products developed through Spiritual Science to market
On June 23, Tonalitá will debut at the Pacific Audio Fest in Seattle, WA at the DoubleTree Hilton. If you’re around Seattle, come on down and visit us at the show, booth 15 in the HeadZone. Visit our website at tonalitah.com and see what we’re about.
What is it that we’re all about? I’m glad you asked!
Universal harmony is all around us in all living things, in nature, and in the cosmos. At Tonalitá we know this to be true; whatever is created by us must also be in harmony with us. If there is disharmony in what we create then our health, our society and all of the natural order of things will reveal the ill effect, eventually.
Tonalitá seeks a chord of perfect balance in technologies and services, with the freedom and wellbeing of the individual, first and foremost. We offer products based on research unbound by inherent limitations and that bring benefits of extraordinary worth to the market.
Tonalitá’s mission is to find organizations that have harmony and tonality as their core value and to promote their products and services.
Artist Circle
Entering the Center of Tone
with Manfred Bleffert
by Gail Sauter
It will be a challenge to convey in a short article how skillfully Manfred Bleffert, a contemporary artist and musician from Germany, brought me into the “Garden of the Inaudible” and to a personal exploration of the “Sounding Fields of the Inner World.”
But let me start at the beginning of my musical journey from the perspective of spiritual science.
In the early 1990’s I had the good fortune to “accidentally” pick up the lecture series by Rudolf Steiner entitled The Inner Nature of Music and the Experience of Tone. At the time, I was working as a rhythmical massage therapist in the Lukas Klinik in Arlesheim. Rudolf Steiner’s lectures gave me an introduction to Anthroposophical music theory.
After I returned home to Wisconsin, I began to pursue Werbeck’s method of singing, “The School of Uncovering the Voice,” with a local group of friends. At one of our gatherings, a friend brought several Bleffert instruments which we began to use and employ with our singing, events, and activities. Thus, my experience of the instruments preceded my actual meeting with the creator.
In 2010, Manfred Bleffert provided a training in Waconda, Illinois for a group of musicians under the auspices of the Waldorf Music Teachers Association of North America. I was among the group and was deeply moved by the tone of each instrument and how the sound evoked the history of humanity as well as hinted toward our future.
Manford Bleffert devoted a lifetime to spiritual scientific research of tone and what lies behind the healing properties of sound within music. Michael Deasen-Barrow, in his article available on the Tonalis webpage, states: “What is extraordinary about Manfred Bleffert’s work is the way the voice of each of his instruments is created out of the individuality and being of the material from which it is made. With his metal instruments you can live into the way the tone enters into a silence which is felt as something which is vibrantly alive. The duration of a tone from a metal instrument, such as a gong, calls for a tremendously long attention span in our listening where it gradually takes us into a non-physical world and into a sense of deep peace which typically spreads all around the listener.” (See Resource Links below.)
During this 2010 workshop, Manfred introduced the participants to his research, findings, and a collection of metal instruments he had created in his smithy in Germany with the purpose of demonstrating and illustrating his “Theory of Tone”. He also shared with us his innovative approach to the notation of music which is elaborated on his website. At the end of the week, the participants created an improvisational artistic concert which we performed in a local church that was set in the middle of an enormous field of corn!
His parting words were that soon humanity will be entering into an enormous time of change, old forms of communication, science and music will make a radical departure from what we have experienced thus far. And he suggested that sounding the gongs together in groups would help us learn to listen to the inaudible in the center of tone, find the silence; as well as heal, hear, and begin to understand the emerging languages and landscapes that we will be traveling into.
Subsequently, I traveled to Germany, secured a set of the instruments and use them in workshops and performances that combine speech, eurythmy, meditation, and gatherings of people who recognize the need to find a way to calm, and connect with, their soul and purpose in life.
As Manfred is reported to have said to a member of the audience after one of his concerts: “It is not only music, it is a whole attitude to life.”
When people ask me what my instrument is, I tell them “I play the gong.” For me it is also a way of connecting socially and therapeutically with others to create and meet in freedom at the safe center of being. I believe in doing so, we create a space to nourish and refresh ourselves for the journey ahead into the unknown.
If you are interested in seeing Manfred Bleffert return to the United States and offer workshops please reach out to me.
Gail Sauter is currently serving as the President of the “Rafael Foundation for New Impulses in Music” and lives in Pewaukee, Wisconsin. She is a founding member of the Prairie Hill Waldorf School, and has been a student of anthroposophical writings since 1971. Certified in Rhythmical massage therapy from the Hauschka Schule in Bad Boll Germany, Gail also holds a Master of Social Work and undergraduate degrees in Communications and German from the University of Wisconsin. After an extensive career devoted to the support of health (mental and physical), human services, and educational initiatives, Gail recently retired from Philanthropic Development at the University of Wisconsin – Whitewater.
Gail Sauter: sauterg96@gmail.com
Resources:
Bleffert Website Link https://www.manfredbleffert.de/
Update and news http://lyreassociation.org/blog/2021/7/19/manfred-bleffert
History and background, article by Michael Deasen Barrow http://www.tonalismusic.co.uk/images/pdfs/Manfred_Bleffert_Article.pdf
MysTech Study Courses
Offering Studies into the Mysteries of Technology
Consider Joining A Course This Fall
MysTech intends to cultivate the ground both in the human soul and in industry whereby a healthy Man-Machine relationship can be realized. Toward that goal, MysTech intends to establish a research and development center. In support of our research goal, MysTech offers educational programs such as these study courses as well as a newsletter, periodic webinars, and an annual conference in addition to these study groups.
Each study course intends to build a supportive environment for the study of key lectures given by Rudolf Steiner regarding the future interaction of mankind with machines. Each course has a study guidebook containing lectures by Steiner along with study questions. The guidebooks are available: Study Course Guidebooks, link: https://secure.cfae.us/mystech-study-guides-pdf/
Eight study groups complete their 12-week studies together this June. The next term will be from September to Advent. Please let Andrew know if you would be willing to host a group in September.”
Consider forming a group for Fall 2023! Each course is formed around a group whose members can be from anywhere in the world. The guidebooks can be used without a group leader.
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