Hans Kayser

AKROASIS
THE THEORY OF WORLD HARMONICS

Translated by Ro/;Jert Li/ienfeld

 CONTENTS

Biographical Essay on Hans Kayser by Dr. Julius

Schwabe 11

Foreword by Dr. Hans Kayser 20

Chapter I 24
The .silualion.

Chapter II 26
The word "harmonics"; the concept of har­
monics in classical Greece; in anliquity; Pytha­
gorism and science; the two Pythagorean
approaches; evaluation o f these approaches in
antiquity; today,· jus 1ifica1ion for today .

Chapter III 33
Pythagoras and his teachings; secr,et teaching
in antiquity; Plato's Seventh Leiter; �haracter
of wisdom teaching in antiquity; the Pytha­
gorean Table; the "partial-tone coordinates";
some Pythagorean fragments.
Chapter IV 44
Harmonica/ back91·ounds of otd wisdom l e a c lz ­

ings; A. von Thi-mus; 3000 years of ha1·monicai

tradition; prerequisites for ha,.nionical inquiry
(historical): new grounding of harmonics;
VI

"The Hearing Man"; "The Sound of the

World"; "Essays on Jhe Ee type of Harmonic
Palue"; "Fundamentals of a System of Har­
.
monical Palues"; "Harmonia Plantarum" 1•
"Textbook of Harmonics"; "Harmonical Stud­
ies"; short survey of today's harmonicaZ.. in­
quiry.

Chapter V 54
Fro111. the harmonical workshop; tone-spectra;
crystals; geology; the earth one chord; prime­
val generation; harmony of t he sp heres ; Kep­
ler; Third Law of Kepler .

Chapter VI 61
Botany; branch growth; leaf spectra; Goethe's
prototype of leaf forms; Linnaeus; sexuality;
the three kingdoms in nature; the ear; the snail
shell; ear canals; the ear as organ of time
and space; sensitivity of t he ear for time inter­
.
va ls ; recipro city of eye and ear.

Chapter VII 72
A. S tifter ; proportions; architectur e; harmon­
ica/ canon of division; modern architecture;
acoustics of auditoriums; painting and sculp­
ture; Lepsi�u; ,1Jbrccht Diirer," importance of
study of proportions; Wyneke11; modern painl­
ing; remarkable symme tr ie s i11 classical works;
musical t h e or y ; hannonical ins truction in con­
servatories; modern music; "The Shape of the
Piolin."
 ..
Vil

Chapter VIII 91
The humanities; mathematics; Gestalt mathe­
matics; word, language, poetry; akroasis of the
word,· of the language; of poetry,· J. Burck­
hardt; lone and rliytlim; philosophy; Schopen­
hauer; mythology, symbolism; two concepts of
God.

Chapter IX 102

The position of harmonics in contemporary

thought; E. Cassirer, mythical thought; mod­
ern naturalistic thought; C. G. Jung; the col­
lecti'Ve unconscious; the position of harmonics;
a) mythical thinking; b) the collective uncon­
scious and the archetypes; prototype and arche­
type; c) modern scie,uiftc thinking.

Chapter X 115
Limitation and reflection.

Chapter XI 119
Thought; one of the senses; philosophy; origin
of philosophy;,, mysticism; spirit; steps of cog­
t1ition.

Chapter XII 123

llcti"L·ation of the so11t; the i11di'l.:id11al a11d the
conununily; having time; the dangers of mass
cul111re; position of existence 1:alues; tolerance;
humanity; objec1ivi1y; universality.
Vlll

Chapter XIII 134

Harmonics, a theory of correspondences; ].
Gebser; the general validity of tonal relations;
1he law of harmonical quanta; science and free­
dom; the Heisenberg "Uncertainty Principle";
.

B. Bavink.

Chapter XIV 143

Harmony; harmonics, a theory of lhe conso­
nances and dissonances of the world,· harmon­
ical interpretation; the planetary intervals;
cosmological interpretations of the diagrams;
darkness and light; 1he "Golden Age",· reincar­
nation; the metaphysical remainder.

Notes for Table I 156

Table II

Notes for Table II 157

Table I

Additions to the Text by Hans Kayser 159

Bibliography 162

Works on Harmonics by Hans Kayser 171

Index 173
 ACKNOWLEDGMENT

We are grateful to Dr. Herbert Fromm

for his valuable assistance and advice
in the preparation of the manuscript of
this book.
HANS KAYSER

1891-1964
 HANS KAYSER

Hans Kayser, rediscoverer of the ancient discipline of

harmonics, died April 15, 1964. \V i t h his incessant and
original work extending over decades, he wa s the sole
representative in his time of this many-branched science.
Kayser grew out of no existing school, no circle of like­
minded colleagues. His immediate predecessors and teach­
ers-Albert von Thim us and Johanncs Kepler (not to
mention the Neo-Platonists and the Pythagoreans) had
lived and worked decades, even centuries, before him. He
will go down in the spiritual history of our century as a
highly gifted, unique indivi<lual, a pioneer and a dis­
coverer, for whom the spiritual attitude was as important
as the scientific. He was a man who never lost sight of the
whole for the sake of the particular.
I.I krcfosis deals on every page with the meaning and na­
tu1·e of harmonics. Any further word here concerning its
12

teaching and world-concept would be bringing water to

the brook. Instead, let me in the Dext few pages sketch
the course of the author's life, and mention briefly the
works published since 1946, thus bringing up to date Kay­
ser's own listing ( p. 170).
Hans Kayser was born April 21, 1891, in Buchau (Up­
per Danube Valley), the son of an apothecary. How sig­
nificant his father's example was for his life and work is
to be gathered from this excerpt from the dedication to
his deceased father in the Harmonia Plant arum:
"Music and plants appeared to you the two. gates
through which the divine light shines in our souls, the
former as the proclaimer of eternal laws, the latter as the
man if ester of the unchangeable laws of the beginnings of
life. Tone and form were proof to you that to be a citizen
of this earth had a meaning, :1nd that our yearning to be­
long is fulfilled through hearing.
"How often you took me with you in search of plants,
even while I was still a small boy. Hardly a valley, hill or
rock in the Alb region, florally perhaps the richest in Ger­
man terrain, was safe from us. Yet only occasionally, and
in small amounts, did we bring home any plunder. The
real plunder we kept in our minds, and the sight of count­
less stands of rare and beautiful Rowers, shrubs and
bushes is guarded unforgettably in my thoughts even to­
day, like precious old pictures ... And often, when we
came back to the house tired, and you had shut up shop,
another realm awaited us, an inner one, music.When you
were forty years old, in that little town far away from
any music center, you learned to play the viola and you
had me, at the age of ten, begin playing the ·cello. To­
gether with other enthusiasts we played Haydn quartets,
 13

for better or for worse, and ended up playing Beethoven

and Schubert. The old stone figure standing by the plash­
ing fountain in the market place in front of our house
must have felt a strange sensation in its breast from our
heart-rending tones. It seemed beautiful to us then, and
still seems so today."
. For a long time the versatile youth was undecided
whether or not to develop his talent for painting. But the
hearing man in him finally gained the upper hand. At
twenty Kayser studied music and natural science in Berlin,
and after many stimulating experiences and profound
study, he took his doctor's degree in History, Philosophy,
and the History of Art at the University of Erlangen.
He first made a name for himself as editor of the series
Dom= = !J.#�faer. de�Jscher Mys. tik (Cathedral Series­
_
_

Books of Gcrrµan M:ysticism), published by Inset-Verlag,

acoriim1ssio� which concurred with his innermost bent
for the philosophy of nature and for mysticism. In this
series, he reserved the volumes on Paracelsus and Bohme
for himself. ------····-· ·· -· ···-· ·· ··· ·-· --.. --··
· · ·rn··1920;·11ter studying Kepler�-H�"'!<?'n�c_� . .�n4� and
Albert von Thimus' Harmonikale Symbolik des Alter­
Tums(H;����-ical Symbolis· � of Antiquity), he turned to
harmonics, a turn which was to prove decisive in his later
l ife. In PY.thagoras' basic esoteric diagram, known as the
Lambd�ffi'�,-·hc gained possession of the key ·which for the
1rrst. tim� opened the door to an understanding of the
mysteries of minerals and plants, their proportions and
the rhythms of their growth, by means of the musical
number. Von Thimus had approached the La mbdo ma
chieAy in retrospect as a philologist and anti.quarian, using
it as a cultural symbol. Kayser extended it beyond the
14

bare framework outlined by lamblichus and made it into

a tool for his new harmonical investigations in natural
science. -:.
.

The first work along this line, Orpheus_,_.� . hiblLQP.hH.�­

.

edition !!1. fo��-� (.�o���arµ 1�24) '-·was issued in just two

__

hundred copies �nd today has great value as a rare· edi­

tion. Eight years later Der horend� Me�!ch .LT�c �.� ..

ing Man) _followed, whose profound Introduction assails

in particular the one-sidedness of the haptical, quantify­
ing tendency of modern science and p�ilosophy, thus
postulating as well as justifying philosophically a new
world-concept founded on the higher senses of seeing and
hearing. .
Kayser married Clara Ruda in Berlin before the First
World War. This happy marriage produc�d three chil­
dren; Clara was an understanding and true hclpmeet to
the end of Dr. Kayser's life. Hitler's assumption of
power moved Kayser to accept, in 1933, an invitation
from friends in Bern. In Switzerland he subsequently not
only gained further adherents and assistants, 1 but also
had the rare good fortune to find people who through
their readiness to make sacrifices, enabled him and his
family to settle and live permanently in S:witzerland.
Thus freed from the cares of earning a livelihood, he
��_!!!_ye F�ct.£.C,_Kayscr'a "fint pupil in harmonica", proprietor of a
well-known clothin& bu1ine11 in Bern, ahhou1h elderly and tuffcring from
a heart ailment, built himself an archive for harmonic reaearch on the top
floor of his place of business, with a valuable specialized library, and
numerous optical and acoustical research instruments, including a grand
piano and even an organ. For many yean Herr ·Fucter worked with the
care and accuracy of a skilled technical draftsman to complete hundred1
upon hundreds of diagram• which Kayaer need-cd. ffc i1· also aaid to
have made \"arious discoveries by his own research. The archivca, which
today arc entrusted to his daughter-in-law, ·Frau Sonja Fueter_._ could
someday, together with Kayaer'a acientific legacy and his library, furnish
a valuable foundation for a greater Archive for Harmonic Reaearch�
 15

thereafter devoted all his powers to his research activity

·as an independent scholar. In the little house in Oster­
mundigen-Bern which friends placed at his disposal, and
in the more spacious and beautifully situated country
house built by himself in 1952 in Bolligen, all his later
works were written.
He considered himself unsuited to lecturing, and only
relu.cta�tiy' con.scnted to do so, "after hard inner wres-..
ding". A lecture cycle from his early years in Bern (win­
ter of 1935-36) however was the occasion for the beauti­
ful book, P om Kl�nq der Welt (The Sound. �f t��-­
World), which perhaps leads more immediately and eas­
I!f.J.'!�! �f�_its...�n� . pa-rtlc�_la·r· p rob(e.ms' of har�on�cs
_thal'.l
. _�ost .of hi� otQer writings. Later, after an interval
of nearly twenty years, I twice succeeded in bringing
Kayser to the lectern at conferences on symbolism in Basel
(1955 and 1957). The gratifying reception which he
found there encouraged him later to give a course in har­
monics at the Academy of Music in Basel (19 5 6-5 7),
also to deliver two lectures at the Academy of Music in
Vienna (1959). He also took an active part in an Eranos
conference in 1958.
This aversion to public lecturing, w h iCh K ayser never
fully overcame, resulted in his not having pupils in the
full meaning of the word,2 a lthoug h individual research­
ers-among them myself-took over from him the funda­
mental symbols and concepts of harmonics and worked
with them in their own way.
If I have spoken of rare good fortune, of self-sacrific-

1 An exception i1 the mu1ician and harmonicist ..Q.k �_lldolf Haue of Wup­

_pe��J-El��!f�Jd_,. who re1ard1 himself u Kay11er'1 pupil and iii, in a

certain sense, deemed his 1uccc11or. A bio1r1phy of Kayser by Haue is
awaited, one which Kayser himaclf commi11ioncd.
16

ing friends and similar matters, it must not be supposed

that Kayser enjoyed a fully assured, carefree existence.
Not at all. He had t·' experience the inconsistency of
fortune speedily and bitterly. Sponsors upon· whom his
living depended died suddenly overnight, and despite his
natural warmth he, proud and sensitive, withdrew from
others. More than once he found himself without finan­
cial means.
"Worries, worrice, worries I The whole of life is noth­
ing but one worry, and becomes more questionable any
way one looks, the older one grows. Only the spiritual
. world resounds and glows in primeval and eternal splen­
,
dor., (From a letter, April 5, 1955.)
Neither unsocial nor uncommunicative�for all his
reluctance for public life-Kayser nonetheless considered
it his primary task to influence his contemporaries, and
those who would come after him, through the medium of
the prin.ted word. His substantial books have- accom­
plished that task with ever-growing success. Their influ­
ence has proved more decisive, the inspiration which
comes from his fresh insights reaches· considerably fur­
ther, than was heretofore known or surmised.1 And yet
this is likely to be but a beginning. That which c_haractcr­
izes our century, that tendency to shatter and destroy
all traditional forms and orders-in political and social
life, in religion, poetry, the arts and music-becomes
more and more shallow and meaningless, and is running
towards a desolate void and thus to. its inglorious end.
Sooner or later the pendulum of our western cultural de­
velopment must swing back in the opposite direction.
Kayser believed this to the very end, and his conviction

'According to a verbal statement by R. Hauc, who it at prcaent gathering

and sorting all the writinK• inspired or inftucnc.cd by Kayacr.
 17

that, according to inner law, the perverse and absurd

which offended his eye, ear and feeling,· would die of its
own accord, held him back from stigmatizing it .openly.
Harmonics, this universal and timeless teaching of order,
would one day assume a decisive role in the task of re­
construction and thus become a leading power as a philos­
ophy in which measure, value and quality would once
again be honored.
Of the works of Kayser which were in preparation
when Akroasis was published, the two harmonic studies,
.Per: har:�o_n�.��Je. '(ei.lungskanon (The Harm9nic Canon
_of DiyisionuE� ...Pi!-for!" der Geige_ {The Sh�pe of the.
_Vic;>lin). appeared in 1.946 and 194 7.Jhe.. . h�-�r�lf:�!.!_4.e_r._
Harmonik (Fundamentals of Harmonics), monummtal.
Tricv·e��Y·.�e�£t.��a!.���.!�h.c:_<(�� _t.�����4 .�ff95Q�_For the
·scientifically working harmonicist it will always remain
the indispensable, fundamental work of Kayser.
Meanwhile the plan for a new comprehensive work,
the Harmonikalen Symboli.U.!"!��.!!:1_<?!1.i.<:�!...m .§y boljsm L..
intended to be in three parts with the over-all title Qrphi­
�o�ad matured. In seven years ( 1949-1956) Kayser
was abl� to finish the first third, Die Well der Goller
{The World. .of the G-��-�h and get it ready for the press
in a setting of about seven hundred and twenty pages in
his own handwriting.• It is to be hoped that this work,
which is complete in itself, can be made public in the
next few years. The material had exceeded all the au­
thor's expectations as he worked on it, so he decided,
after the completion of Part I, not to publish it immedi­
ately, but first to publish as an independent work some-
•The tw o other main part• bear in general plan the titles: Die W lit des
M111ulien (The World of Meo) and Die W 111 de1 Heils (The WorldOf
'ltedemption). Nine chapters were planned foreaCli"oTthe three 1ection1.
18

thing that originally was but a digression, namely, a

study on Paestum and the_��!t:J!O�.ics of_i_ts poric -��.P!�
The bcautif ul bo�·k...f!�:!.!�.!!, completed at the end of
1954, was publ�-���.<!_!n_ .tI�id�l��rg .in _.1�$..� Kayser
called it "in a certain sense a counterpart to the Harmonia
Plantarum. As in the sphere of the plant kingdom, so
here in the_ sphere of architecture, it is shown -----
. -...... ·how to
apply. harmoni�!!. invc.�,t�.g.��-·�I!-�-�� .�na�y�i. � ..��n _cr_ �ili �:.
- ·· ....
-
- · ·
· - ·-
· · ··-·
--......

.
·- - .....
.

-Paestum was the .. last of his books which Kayser lived

_ ... .

to see in print. Whether and to what extent he .had added

to his Orphil£2!J.. (which no doubt occupied his thoughts
constantly), remains an open question, as it �as not yet
been possible to make a complete survey of his spiritual
legacy. It is certain however that apparently i.n the last
year of his life he began to make another copy by hand
of the already finished part of the Orphikon: a truly
splendid copy. When I saw it, I couldn't help but think
of the pious labor of medieval monks who gave months
and years of their lives to copying a precious manuscript.
And I asked myself if such a document really could have
been intended as copy for the typesetter. D.id Kayser
have in mind to dedicate it to someone? Or was it begun
solely for the joy and edification of the author, already
in the shadow of death, who had always loved a generous
format, handsome paper, broad margins, a well-propor­
tioned page design, and a beautiful type face or hand­
writing? According to Dr. Hermann Augustin of Basel,
a friend of Kayser who visited him a few weeks be . fore his
death in Bolligen, Kayser had not at that time considered
a printed edition of the manuscript in the near future and
had begun the copy so painstakingly to facilitate its dis­
tribution through microfilm. However that may be,
 19

Kayser was far from completing the copy. It includes

only a fifth of the original manuscript and breaks off with
the prophetic words :
"This world is no vale of tears, but is filled with fear­
ful dangers and lordly beauties at the same time. Each
of us steers his little ship of life between a Scylla and
Charybdis existing both within and outside ourselves.
But if we hold to our course, perform our mission from
on high to the best of our strength, the sky is blue above
us and the goal of our homeland beckons nonetheless.
And should misfortune come upon us, we know that in
another existence there is compensation. And when we
take the path leading to that door through which each
one of us must someday pass, we shall enter into the
eternal where, in the great repose of the Source, we shall
find shelter and peace, freed from earthly limitation.
There we shall entrust ourselves to the great mystery, the
endless good, the light and the harmony of eternity".

Julius Schwabe
Basel, September 1964
 FOREWORD

Hans Kayser

This book offers a short and understandable survey of

the theory of harmonics, a field of investigation which is
new and at the same time very old. And, wherever possi­
ble, without tables, numbers, and diagrams within the
text. This is roughly comparable to a survey of the prob­
lems of mathematics or of relativity made without the
help of mathematical formulae or diagrams. The danger
of such an undertaking is obvious.
·
Over the years I have been asked many times to write
such a survey, but only now, when I can look back on my
harmonica} work completed in the meantime, may I begin
it. My books were designed to show harmonics from
different points of view, thus giving a foundation for this
 21

new theory. Now it is possible to refer to the appropriate

passage in those books; there is no need to project asser­
tions in a vacuum. Thus the text remains free of numbers
and formulae. Technical terms and those of foreign
derivation are explained in parentheses. Footnotes for the
most part refer to those passages in my own works and
to those of others where the related problems arc dealt
with at length. A few pages in this book deal intentionally
with certain problems in a more technical way, partly to
give the scientist more precise m aterial and p artly to ,

offer the lay reader some impor tant harmonic theorems

that he may test by examples.
The title A kroasis (from �.he Greek aKpoaCTL�, he��=
ing; in contrast to aesthesis, dtw0Ecri�, seeing or perceiv­
lrig·)-should not bc "understood. as an attempt to int ro duce
.
.. .

a new concept in philosophical or scientific terminology.

For practical reasons it was thought best to choose a
simple, concrete expression for a subj e ct still strange to
many people. Thus homage was paid to the spirit of the
ancient Greeks by choosing the word akroasis. But there
was yet another reason for deciding on the new exp res­
sion. The term. "harmoni�!·-� .i.�..J�mi}iar_�..!...A.. cl.�.!§kal
concept ·of. �Y.�.h�g�r��!-
�
which
�
;;...,owas
..._
o... revived by Kepler in
his Harmonice mundi. It should not be ·-confused with the
••
•

·-·-···
_
- . •

· ··-- - .

familiar term "h a rmonics " as used in music where it . .

.

means chords, or as it refers to fingering technique in

str°i"ng playing.
Ou_r.harmonics is, in contrast to the term used in music,
of a more ur:iiversal kind. It tells of the old, yet always
n e w theory of the "Ha_!_f!l.9.!lY QLtli.�.-�R.ber�!i'.\ a.n atti.
, .

tude of the spirit which Dante to u ches upon in Purga­

.

torio, XXX, v. 92:

22

"The song of the angels, which is only the echo

Of the song of the eternal spheres,"

and which Shakespeare, in The Merchant of 'f'enice, puts

·

in the mouth of Lorenzo:

"Look how the f1001· of heaven.

l.s thick inlaid with patines of bright gold;
There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'.st
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young ey'd cherubims:
Such harmony is in immortal souls,·
But, whilst this muddy vesture of deca
. y
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it."
AKR6ASIS
 I

T/11 situation.

In the midst of historical disasters of world-shaking

dimensions, like those in whose shadow we s t and , the soul
of man looks for a stronghold in the d angerQu s fluctua­
tions seemingly bursting all firm foundations. Reflective
natures flee into an inner world and seek their salvation
in religion, mysticism, or even occult studies. Rcvqlu­
tionary spirits sense a new dawn nd p\Jt. their trust in
a

an overturn of all established values, and in a wholly

new orientation in the realm of thought, feeling and
inspiration. However, those for whom mankind's efforts
in the past are not merely old rubbish, do not expect so
much a possible road for the future in meditation or
revolution, but rather in a regeneration of what has
 25

proved true up to now. They seek first of all within them­

selves a state of mind from which such a regeneration
only can be possible.
If we listen to ourselves, and test the manifold feelings,
wishes and thoughts of our psychic power, for a state of
mind which leaves old things in their truth while joining
the new in a natural continuation to the old, then we shall
find, I believe, two spiritual forms out of which the old
can be revived, and the new can be begotten in the womb
of past cultures. These_��� .f�.�1.1!.S_Qf tpe •Pid�.1-.lQ_.i� s��ITlJ.
..

to me, we can l>cst name with the term!_.!!!!���

value: measure as a term for_ tl}e__o,rder of thi�g§J _y_a�ue
as a �crm for the laws of thingss. Measure and value how­
ev�r arc�psychic pri�!2.�!i two spirituaJ c�tegorics
in which, aincc ancient times, a very specific mode of think­
ing has �oy�d: that of harmonics.
 II

Tiu word "harmonics"; t/11 conetjl of hormonic� in c/1111ic11l

Grttce; in antiquity; Pythagorism and uitnu ,· tlu two Pythag­
orttm approaclus t.,a/uation of thtu 11ppro11cht1 in antiquity,·
,·

today,· justification for today.

Harmonics stems from.th� G�ee_k har _ _1��kos_:_eC?rt_ ain­

ing to music. With the old Greeks this term already had
a much broader scope and signified, especially in the
�thago�-�.!!.. definition, a science �f__�ea,sut:_�. (number}_
_a�.4-�ql��t'. ( t.�n�>-.:._lts evolution was fruitful not merely
_

for the scientific thought of the ancient Greeks but for

their entir� culture, in its widest reaches. In the back­
ground of Pythagorean harmonical thinkirlgStarids, �is
a synthesis, the t er m harrn<l'�y�· ( 1) Today we hardly have

· an adequate conception of the tremendous effect this idea

had on all Greek thinking and creativity.
 27

"We need only to recall the importance of music in

early Greek education, and the close rel!!�.�!!!.h.fa_Qf
musk to Pythagorean mathemati<;.s, _to understand
that the first philosophical theory of the pedagogical
effect of music would have to spring from the insight
into the law of numbers in the world of music.�
connection between music and mathematics which
R!t1!.��s estahiishe.<f .ll�!i_:-.!i.o'��r�!n"ajne4� �-�fi"�IJ):
. .Qf.��!t.Gr.cek�pir_ i_t!.
.P��!�-��io!!.
"Precisely from this marriage have grown con­
ceptions which proved the most fruitful and far­
reaching for the artistic thinking of the Greeks. Sud­
denly there flowed into all spheres of life a stream of
newly oriented perceptions, which obviously were
nourished by this source. The six�h £��ry_ B. <;,:...wi!-_
ncssed the birth of �!!Jho_�c ..�a�velo�� -�-:;._;_!:: _�����P.:..
tions of the -���-e�- spi�i�, which have become for us
symbolTCOI 1ts deepest individuality, and insepara­
ble from its essence. They did not exist from the
beginning but came to light in a historically necessary
sequence. The new_fo�igh�. i��9J�!= �t.rnct. u_r:� .�L'!l_'!��--
J!_E.!!_e_. of !h�.Jl�cisi�e moments in this develop�ent.
The knowledge alone of the essence qf har.mqn.y and
·�liythm, developed from that insight, would secure .
for the Greeks their immortality in the history of
·humirn�ulturc-;. the possibilities of applying this in­
sight to every sphere of life are almost unlimited. A
new world strictly conforming to governing laws
opens up, comparable to the tight system of Solonic
jurisprudence. Whereas Anaximander had viewed
the universe as a cosmos of things, th�fY.���gore�
world view consi_dcred the principle of the. c��l'!!.9� ..
28

to be harmony. Whereas Anaxim���� ��4_g_��sp_e.4. .

. t.he. �ausaln�f��!i_ty_ .Qf. �eqtp()f.�I �ye.I\ts, so in the id��­
of harmonics the structural side of cosmic-1!1'!.l.Ji.
.. ·-·- ......._____ .

. ll!�g.�.d��_r ·�' ( 2)
Almost all Greek thinkers have grappled with the con­
cept of harmonics, if not specifically in their own works,
then in principle. Plato's co,n�lusio��-�!1- ..�h� cQ.ucatio,i:i�!.
effects of m�s_ic_.�.��- �.1_10)!�,_!!_i� also his turning t�_P.Y.:
thagodsm in his later philosophy (see the musical scale C>.i
Tim"eus as t��- co��.-�f Platonic cosmology) ;J).�moci:i�!l.!.
��<!�r��yta� wr ote ..works �n- ..'''}i�!in����s:' (.3) which
have been lost, and the entire Pythagorean· tradition ia
full of harmonical references. J�!2�..4r_c_l�il��lqra ( 4 ). o.l.
.Y�������.!,Jh�..8.9.�l!n. wri�er o� .���hitecturc,_ �here cchoc�-­
a lost kn��l��.e_ �f har�<:»ni� p��por.���ns in the art of_
b�ildiqg, w.hich ._th.�. great J�enaissance master-builder_
Leon B�-��t��a Alb�rti_ ( S.) �riec;i �o �a� .�P. agaJ�.· The
astronomer Claudius Ptolemaus' Hat".r!'..<J.!'..i,fS_aQ9 _tP.� c�m-
_!!!ent�ry on)�. by Porp�J_I)'_ ��� .. i.�spi_ !.����.ler to his
Harmo_n�ce mun4_L ( �), in which he. records the discovcrY...
of his famous Third Law '{p. 58) through typical har-
monical operations. I

Pythagorism became of basic importance to present

-��eii�if\.�-.·�houghq_ . w.i�h J�c discovery of the relation
-��-twt:er( pitch· and ::string length, which could �c cstab-
JJ�.�cd numerically, western science was born .. <.�J qual!�.
�ic;s (tones) were derived from qu�.�ti�!e� . ( string or wave
.!�-�gt�s) in an exact way. Thus harmonics stands at the
very beginning of European s�ientific thought.
One who is accustomed to thinking in the Pythagorean
way must however make an important qualification· here.
 29

Although fythaiOJ:!!t-'·� . ���ub.���y_f�!���.i�g very n_i�fh ..

older tradit�ns1 tr_!��f.��'!1-�� �t� - e �u�i�le (qualities) inJ�.
��!!1.E.�!..Lfilt1-9titi. !�) , for him and for those w�o thought
and worked as he did, the reverse was at least of equal
importance: quantities, material things ��.'!!l:!�.ble �..Y.­ __

means_ of number �ringJ�� . gth�..m�m.9. c.�o.r9.). -M.q�fr.�q.

. itu�!.. ��llni_r:t.i?...?.- p�ych�.c .Y�J�e. J�!l�e�ya��, .!.9..!!�tl!.
a _!Pir
Tc or one could in fact. hear the numerical ratios. One must
TrYto sliplriio-·tne_ .soul of an ancient Greek·-to realize
what this meant for him. There in front of him lay the
monochord, an ordinary wooden box with a string
stretched over it-both material objects. A certain por­
tion of thi�.-�trin&t. a. P-�.��I�!!��.� . ..P-i�.£� -�Lllli..t�rltlli...pr9:.
���ed �.!.Ql.l�J-.�-g-:-eater or a •qiall.e� p_i.�c� .of...thc...wnc.
�����ia!...fil!>duc�.�..9t.��r ��E�.!� Did not the essence of
matter revcal_J!.W.f _.t!>....Y.!, and did not the relations of
numbers of the string show a deep inner correspondence
between the "I" and the "you"? The principles of meas­
ure and valucfierc eiitcrcd'1nto 1-mfracufous �niqp_: ca�h..
recognlzea_ ��lel.f ��. ���-�.t�-�r� the �����e_.�t.��--!�!!!i
saw itself reflected in the value of the experienced, sensed
"forie, and the value of this tone saw itself reftected in the
·measured length of the string.
It is especially this latter aspect of Pythagorism1 that
again and again must have inspired and even deeply
stirred his followers. Through this experience of sounding
numbers, the world began to sound. Matter acquired a
structural counterpart anchored in .the psyche, ·�nd "thc­
spiritual, the realm of ideas, became anchored in ��rm9ni­
cal shapes and forms. A bridge between being and value1
:-world and soul, matter and spirit, was found. Only from
1The reflection of value (tone) by number (meaaure).-Tr.
30

this viewpoint can we begin to comprehend the tre1.11en­

.
dous significance of the idea of harmonics in classical an·
tiquity. This spiritual and intellectual side of Pythagorism
wa�...cu!!!��te� �� as -��o-��ric _!mowledge; therefore Tt.
-

was soon lost and only the other, material side (the. re­
duction· of qualities to quantities) remained and was pur-
sued further. Henc� �C:.:.contemporary� J$�dentEJ..h��� ..

-
�-��_ics. i� n?t. �t ��� -�-��P..�.��:.�-�y -���. ':1!!.C2?-�I'..�.�l.�q_!l!.�.4n.���­
. .
o( _a na.tur.�l scae�c� . te�hnoJ�gy wh_ 1.c�� �-�.t�,���!l��r.-.
. �1!9
. . .

balan��d by psyc�ic and_ ethical values, ends by run�JQ&.

·

aiii�k. A.�Ci for liis part, as far as is possible, the mod�rn

harmonicist must set himself the task of finding a new ap­
proach on the basis of the genuine old ''harmonics", one
which will do justice even within the present day world
view to both those Pythagorean approa ches and thus
revitalize modern thinking in a new way. _I��-- �Y.���:
O�-�h t �e:'l is two-fold: the first is the deriva-
���.9 �P.P!
_

....
__

, tion of quali tonal sensation from u�ntit num·

1 er"s[jt IS ythagorean approach is the basis of the
p resent day exact sciences The second .!P.P-��!�h ��!he
.
• ..

evaluation of uantitics numbers ever thin material)

t rou .. ualaties s chic sensation of number as tones .
his latter approach was, m t e eras followi.ng antiquity,
further pursued only in exceptional cases. Both these Py­
thagorean approaches have in the course of European
development undergone a .fundamental change. It is ex­
tremely important to understand this point correctly,
because out of it can be gained, in a certain sense, a new
validation of harmonics for our present time. The ques·
tion arises: why was the "qualitative" side of J>ythago- .
rism, even as early. as·· the. tini� of Aristotle, ei.thcr ��--
longer understood or frankly rejected, and only i ts quan� " --
 31

titative" sid�_.P!I.�.���� (that is, the der!vat���.f _ql;.l�!iJ?.:.

tive impressions fr��- th� q��!!t.i.�.��i_y�ly. �ea.�µr�b��---�-�-�-
-�_\!_merically calcu .
_ l��!l.?. especially within the natural
sciences? We find the reason right away when we trans­
plant ourselves into Greek thinking and perception. The
inner world of the Greeks, especially of the early Classic
and pre-Classic men, was so filled, indeed overfilled, with
mythological and symbolical conceptions, with purely
psychic forms and experiences, that they absolutely re­
quired a footing in exact basic concepts. In precisely in­
telligible and graspable logical forms a balance was given
against the mytholo�ies (representations of gods and
heroes) which threatened to overwhelm their souls.
Plato's �heory_E.f�.E���dg.e_ is the firs�-�-l!.����� attempt
to cont.!!!i....J!J�.h..�IJ...s�.�ble forft!�_ t.h.� luxl:lr.i��t il!�.&!� J�f.
..

P.!rs.!i{c life,wwhich was even in his time falling apart into

hundreds of religions, cosmologies, mysteries and mythol­
ogies-to grasp it in ideas which lie clear and pure be­
fore the mind and which withstand critical analysis. The
�Y.!h�iQ.t��!l m<.>��chord �xperiment of. . �h�, .tr�!!�tQ.i:..ITI�:-­
. . .

tion of tonal experience into measurable and countable

<iuantl'tres � . into �'�um�.�r�.'\ also gave "to""t:ii'C'--;t"e;ly
.

1iwalteiied iiatur3.'l philosophy the support which at that

..

time it needed, so as not to founder in empty assertions

(all is water, all is fir�, air, etc ) It is thus entirely
. .

understandable that only the guantit��!�L.�-�JJ;�Ja�.lc: . ��e . .

of �y��.a.gorism was pursu�� (urther, �mdergoing a .Pow-.

erful further development, especi ;i lly in the Renaissance.
. . W c of today, however, upon the obvious br�akdown
..

of a civilization based preponderantly on pure logic (phi­

losophy as a science) and quantitative haptical thought
(haptic meaning the tangible), face a fundamentally
32

different situation. For hundreds of years our thinking

has been more and more trained to work and to investi­
gate logically, exactly, objectively, criticaHy. The whole
realm of psychic life, insofar as it has kept its autonomy
in religion and the arts, went its own way, detached from
logic and science; it emancipated itself to the same degree
that "science" made itself independent and absolute. Thus
:!!�. �.nd ourselves today.. in .ex�.��!Y.�J.h�.s>.P.QS!�!_positio11
from the ancients: with them the soul, the heart, the
-
·psychi�· i>�.wc�.=-�»£ im.ii ifl�-tj_�ii �jhi.��i�qe_ 9 J� :�!�a1��-L
and demanded limitation.J!Y. reason, measure and number.
__ . .

..W����� ay are spiritually i�.P.Q!crish��!..l!�Lin JJ!ite of

��.��!g��!!:!.. .E..�ilosoo_hy and _!rt, _!re t�--!�$=.4 .�n.. �.xtcnt dc­
Ji.!e��Q. ..t�Q �h.�.J;Q!Jlplcts. . �.Q-�J�a . -�i.9.1! Q.f sci� a1_1d her.
.

�g.�!.i_�!_�e. 4!u_ghter1 tcc��-���iY.t. that WC need, and must

... . ..

seek again, a turning inward, an inner imme�sion in the

meditative powers of the soul, thus giving new value to
the logical, haptical side of our world irriage.
Harmonics can show a way to this if it once more
takes Pythagorism in its full sense as a starting point.
That means, harmonic� . 9..���-�-- �g�J'!. �u��---�-C�f1�
.
. �l-�-��­
�� -��4 !1E!���.!�(�qual V!lluC?, tone un.d�r�_tQQQ.fu:lt.
. f .all �oncretelf.,. and then in the widest sense as, the ca-
�
acit
.t;.;, for
.;.;;.;.'- s chic ex erience number
-0;.p;.-""
��--�-=---� ·
- understood
. . first
£�!15���C�JY.r.. �!!� !J!�.n in the widest sense as symbol for the
- ···- --· . .. . . .. . . - ·• --

rational, measurable and mat�!:UY . gr�s_p��!.de of

the worls!: Placed side by side as equals, these would lead
our modern thinking to build a new spiritual world, that
of akroasis.
 III

P11lia1or1u and lii1 l1t1cliin111• "'"' ltachin1 in antiquit1,· PlaJ0'1

Sftlt•lll Ltlltr,• cliar•cltr of �isdom ltachi111 in antig11ily,· the
P1tli•1oret1n Tdl1 ,· the "1artit1l·tone coordi11at11"; 1omt Pytha1·
•rt•• /r•1•1•t1.

Since modern harmonics, as will have been observed,

honors Pythagoras as one of its earliest ancestors, a more
detailed account of the circumstances of his life and teach­
ings may now be givcn . ( 8 )
_!?y�hag_or_ as was born in the _6 th century. B. C. on
Samos1 -�!!c. !>f the Ionian islands which lie off Asia
.MJnor1. . t�ought to have been settled by Athenians. While
he lived there, .� ty���t.golykrates seized power, and
Pythagoras, oppos.ed to any dictatorial regime, left the
island and traveled for many years, probably first to
Egypt, with which country Samos at that time had a lively
34

trade. Here Pythagoras appears to have been initiated

into the my_s.�eries of ��e Egyptian priestly teachingsi....Q.L
in any �e to.-��Y�-����g_ht with hi.n t�� only thing_��!£h_
.P.!.���'!L 4�Y...-�-����ce still as�rihE!���'!!J . ��nd ·w�i�h. cer:­
_t!i�.ly w:as not. hi_s inv�!l�io�.:.. the ..�I�.h!i���--t . � eorcm:.
_

The only historically confirmed name which we may bring

into relationship with Pythagoras is that of Phereky4�!i.
_a ��!!1..1?.9.I�ll of Thales from the isl�nfl: ..of.��� and
one of the oldest sages of Greece. From him P.ythagoras
is supposed to have taken over the remarkable teaching
�( the Qrigiµ 9f � U. J.liing� _fr.Q.��.t.r..Ladic l.Hlity: Kron.at
_(!_��c:)., C.�.����-q� ( �-�r�b,..J.hat i.�_§gac�) -�nd the AeJh.s.t.
___
..

�-r. . Z� !:1.L.��- ��-�- . ..f.�J'.".�!-.ti yc:1Ja\Y:&iy

. j�g .Pi::!���.!_�_. This in
.
its essentials
_

was an anticipation, two thousa.nd five hun-

dred years ago, of �-spac�-t. ime causality d��.tri11e. g_f..
Kant an_cLSc_4Q.P.�!1lt�Jl.Cr.: Pythagoras also is supposed to
have taken over J!.?fl!.J?here�yd�� t�e .doct.r..i.ne �f re.in:.
. carnati.cm.L.�JE.h -��Y-�_!.V� ����-- derh"�4J?.Y...·�if!11 �l<:>.r:t.&..
with his teaching of the tf�!l!�yJJr.!?.m. QJ:�l'!taJ!.O�.rces� At
__

-the age..o-fforty, -after long years of journeying through

the old world of that time, Pythagoias reappeared at
Crotona, in southern Italy.
As a mature man, fascinating through· his personal­
ity and his fund of knowledge unheard of in those times,
he soon su cceeded in gathering around himself an en­
thusiastic group. He was the founder ·and center of the .
so-called Pythagorean Society, and among his followers
were some who occupied most influential positions. Prob­
ably due much more to the strict exclus ive rules of this
brotherhood than to known conscious influence in political
and ethical activities, the Pythagoreans were suspected of
subversive activities. It is reasonable to s up p ose that en vy
 35

of their spiritual prominence let loose against them the

b:ise instincts of those in power, and it was not long be­
fore persecutions began. These culminated in��--�
derous !!tC.!!!Pt �Y. I<;ylon, an influential citizen of Cro:
of.
t. '.1.�'·r·��- � ..K�!�!.!r:!g o f �ythagoreans i� the �ouse
. � ..

}Jil�J�ylon.J1�g JPe. �()USC set on fire, m which forty

.

people e�!��h�ci _amo�g them, according to some acc<?.u.nt�·�

,

_fyth�g�ras . �imse�f : By Pther reports, Pythagoras is s?p­

.
-

po�ed to. �av . � _fled_ �� .�ocr 1 , where however he was demcd .

:.��mission . According to this version it was at Metapon�_us
that he died. Kylon's attack was the signal for a general
persecution.not only in southern Italy but throughout the
Greek colonies generally, where the Pythagoreans had
been spreading. The power of the brotherhood was out­
wardly broken, to be sure, but we may certainly assume
that there were followers in existence hundreds of years
later who communicated with one another secretly . So
r�ads an extract of the tra.ditional accounting of the outer
life of Pythagoras and of the Pythagorean fellowship.
What did Pythagoras teach?
No genuine fragments have been handed down from
Pythagoras himself, but on the other hand a considerable
number have come from Pythag o reans . These, it is true,
have been attacked in recent times by the arrogance of
hyperc riti cism , on the grounds that they may date only
from the time of Plato or e ven later. Strangely ·enough,
nearly all these skeptics agree on the high value of these
fragments and the interrelationship of most of them.
Even if Pythagoras himself had not ex i ste d at all, and
Pythagorism had first arisen with or after Plato, the con­
tent of this Pythagorean teaching is so interesting in itself
that an earnest inquiry into it is rewarding, and al way s
36

has been so, as the almost unlimited literature on this

theme proves. The assumption that Pythagoreans ap­
peared only with and after Plato is absurd for anyone
acquainted with ..fr.t�_�gorE.�n. thi_n�in_g __ �nd.. �Q.n���ti�
. esp��!-��1:YJ.n view of �he -�-�!i�_i!lg ��mi!���.�. w.itti. Chi'!!;�
.�!ld .�t� �.!:.���h!� C.-���!f�� g�� �& �y�� (�.r-���:1:. �ack in t � �
For a full understanding, a fact must be pointed out
which has been avoided in all newer works on Pythago­
rism, a fact however which is decisive for a correct judg­
ment and evaluation of traditions of this. kind. This fact
is the deliberate secrecy and oral tradition 9f the central
theorems of Pythagorism, attested to by so many em­
phatic accounts that only haptical delusion can pass it by,
or look upon it as unimportant or as a fraud. The reason
is easily comprehensible. Since the haptical man as a phi­
lologist can only acknowledge as "genuine" that which he
can find in written documents, the plane of oral tradition
seems to him a highly dangerous one which he would
rather not trust. But in this regard the case of Pythago­
rism is just the reverse. What has actually been preserved,
the f cw fragments as well as the trustworthy infQrmation
about the teaching, was written down by those who stood
outside the esoteric society of the Pythagoreans, or else
by true initiates who purposely veiled wha� was to be told.
There is however a whole series of theorems, by t_ h�m.:.
5eives incomprehensible, ·sometimes even :·hanal, for wh1c�­
however harmonic analy�is fi�ds a surprising soluti.on.
This analysis had not been tried so far until I undertook
the task for the first time in my essay on Pythagoras. ( 8)
Ma�y of th�---�o-cal�ed 11genuine11 fragments the��e!���­
-��Y. .P_.?.�s at - � est as .transcriptions, or intimati�.ns of t.��
. ?:Ctual. Pythagorean t_he�_r.ems, J:!ut_. ne _ ver as _auth�nti�­
. �elics of Pythagorean researches ..
 37

There are numerous well-documented passages in an­

cient literature which testify to the !Jractice of deliberate
veiling or secrecy. A. von T�Im...l!s1.i!!..�.�-eJ.��Lyplume of
his work �n_}� e harmonic sym_b�!!��--�f -�-�iq_�ity.( �.U.
_Qresent3._tl!_�s�-��-o.Yr��� ·. ·w.i.��-- :�ciajl_�<!.�c?.��ei:it;i.rij:s� . jl_nd
Plato emphasizes the necessity for their secrecy in his
Seventh Letter-one of the most interesting documents
of that epoch, which should be put at the head of every
translation of Plato's works: "The publicizing of those
secrets I do not deem a boon for men, excepting for those
initiates who arc able to discover them with no more than
a given hint. For the others it would produce a stupid
derision or else a self-glorification in a mistaken idea that
they have eaten wisdom with spoons" .1

Now the question arises for us today: what reason

could the ancients have had for hiding their light under
a bushel? The Greeks for example did not hide their
philosophic, artistic or scientific ideas-why just the
harmonic? Individual experience alone can here give a
convincing reason. Any��!.���---�C�t:J.Pi.C:� ..�.ii:n�el_f_ for__!�.X-.
length of...!i_ _'!l�. .w.it.b .harmP.nk Pr.�P.�m!..w.iU .§9QO IJQ�i£e.
��-�!.!.'?..t!!:.��i�g d.�-�j-�ivc is at stake : firs�. _th.e .�bs�rvation
. .. ...

of the world and the _fulln�ss ofj�s appearances at their

-riio�ti�p�rtant and sensitive junctures; second, the -d��­
·mand ·of the "I" to establish an unequivocal inner rela­
tionship and valuation with the "you". Nature is JlOt
merely "recognized" in its differentiation and then
claimed as a unity, but at every moment places the "I"
before the decision: Do you belong to me and my neces-
a T/11 Plato.it E1i1tl11, tr. by J. Harward, Cambridge University Preu,
19J2, p. US. See also the tr. by R. G. Bury in the Loeb Clauical Library,
Vol. 254, Harvard Un. Pre111 1929, p. 533.
38

sities, or are you able to gain your freedom? The tremen­

dous obligation bound up with this is clear. The impelling
inner logic of harmonical deductions !n no way excludes
the capacity for action, but on the contrary intensifies
one's capacity for activity, and also one's humility. For
we are _Q_��.lLl}g here wi�h. JlO�!ti�g inore !1.or less than a
reoilcritation of man to the Deity, conditio.ned. by .me�ns -
�f .th�_pe.r._�eptio_n� �( -��.��g�i� J�.ws!
But this particular reorientation require� distinct ethi­
cal guidelines; only in this light docs the ·adherence to
secrecy in ancient times become understandable.
The entire wisd�m tC!l£hi. ng of antiquity w;u sonccrned
not ·merely with knowledge, but with a scientific an�E.�.
ligious symbolism, and above all with the applicatio11_Ef_
this symbolism. On the one hand the numeric .and har­
monic content of those mystery teachings., especially the
Pythagorean, was what one could teach and demonstrate.
On the other hand, this same content was also the mor­
phological element used by teachers and priests in. their
dogmas and it is understandable that only the harmonical
symbolism wa�!__�\Y�Y..J�!!!_.l!.r_�f �.'!�.eyes, and prob�. .
__

-abfyused as the most important pedagogic means at.}Ji.� ..

.
"initTition,;- into the·��ys"tcriCs. and acceptance into the
priestly caste ·-o-l "t'he.csotcric . sodctics.
So we shall have to hold firmly to this proposition: in
ancient literature the traditi.�n'.ll Pythagorean teac�ing
and theorems arc" o.�JY.· h.ints,. �I�ciJmlocutions, of an an­
cient ·��(f .conc��tc harmonic - symbolism, whose kernel
·one must expose first of all if one wants to understand the
Pythagorean teaching in its real meaning.
"PJ�Jo _ tc�£h es t h . �9J�g:r. Jn.. t_!i�..J9;1:m of ..math.em� �! �al_
_

figures, as did the Pythagorean holy word and Phi�ola':ls

 39

in the Bacchae"-so reads one of the Pythagorean frag­

ments. (9) Through all of an!_LquitY.. . r.�!!�. .i:l JracJjt.iQP.....Qf
_mysterious sye�!>�� ��� -���gE�!'l.�. ?f-Pyt��gore�n, . .Qr.igi.n, .
-��ic_h._�-�X�. .n�ver definitely name�, .Q!...if_ �·�·'-·�he'!_ �s ob­
_vio�s falsifications or nonsensical misinterpretations. But
today we can see this point more clearly. For instance,
the conclusion of Boethius' first book on geometry says:
11The Pythagoreans, to avoid errors in their multiplica­
tions and divisions and measurements-as generally they
were skilled to a high degree in powers of invention and
subtlety-had thought out a formula for their use which
they called the P_yJ!1agorean Tabl� in honor of their
master, because that which they drafted pictorially had
come to their knowledge through the expositions of their
master himself. This table was called Abacus by the later
ones".1
Eberhard Hommel ( 10) writes on the harmonical
technique of the Pythagoreans as follows: "The Pythag­
orean school, as it is known, posited a close relation..Ji�
tween numbers and tones through the demonstration of
th.e _si!l!P.I�-r: ·�tios which .exist ·between ten.gths ·()f s'tririg�.
These investigations were made on the monochord, a
simple board or frame with one string and a movable
bridge as well as a measuring scale. The te!lsiol!...of _th�.. .
���� wa� v�riable by t�e use �f differe.n.t �.c.lg�t.�:.. Th�. .
�'!:���.'!.1._ ���;' used by music teachers from early antiquity
J.lp .to the time of Guido . of Arezzo to ensure correct pitch
1"Pythagorici vero ne in multiplicationihuit et partionihus et in podismi�
aliquando fallerentur, lit in omnihu1 erant ingenio�i•l<imi ct 11uhtilinimi,
descrip1erunt aibi quandam formulam 11uam ab honorcm sui pr1 ec eptori11
menaam Pytha1oream nominahant, quia hoc quod depinxerant magi2'tro
1
praemonstrante cocnovcrant, a po tcr iorihua appcllabatur Abacu» ... "
-EucliJt1 Gtomtlrict1, Lib. l, p. 1334, from Boet/1. Optrn Oinriin, in
Pt1lrolo11i11t Cur1u1 Co'm,letu1, Tomua LXlll, Pari1 1H7.
 40

j�-� �-�j_qin _ g_ $iogei:§l.. was called_�a_!!�,.!!:_The handling of this

-
·

same canon ( katalome tou kanonos) was . explained by

Euclid of Alexandria, . who _left behind a special thesis.
.
After the-refatlon s .of string lengths o� �-f .Y.��r-�t�_ng bodies.
of air (as in pipes, etc.) were dascovere-d by experimenta- ·

tion, and simple linear ratios were demonstrated; the. y

went further and constructed geometrical figures and a
kind of coordinate system, that is, a system of ·parallel
and intersecting lines, the" 'Diagramma' " {literally, line
.
intersections) where-through lengths and simple geo­
metric operations the number- and tone-relations were
represented. Finally they were led from here on to.��jr�u­
\ar systems �!Id .r�heric�L _ sy�!_e_m_$_, �p�reby. the_ -��.nes...
__

. then were not represented merely by str:aight" lengths buL

·- 4
.: also by�_'�i:�s -�-ii..�nz!�!·>,::..l! �!�Jiclong� _the sp�_cric-ki�etic .
': system of_t�e H.e�r_ajf;�.!P.-��� grammarians, the teaching
of the " 'inclination' " and" 'declination' of tones in the
1·1

� termin9l�� �f th:e-�a�iii�-gr�.�fii��-(ans and o(Syria�--��!:

·

[ !\ra���- p,bpnetics:., Wc find clear indications of the same

-thinking in the old astrologi��L-��-��hi1_1,&1._W.!i�I.e. tlic -�=­
p��on _ h�.!.�ti�!l� �f .t�e. -�_ta
_ i:'.�.}V.�J"C:. e_qq�t�d .as. angk.
Climens1ons !<? ..the !����Y.�!� �.f..�he s�al�.1..�hifh jj still th�
..caseTr:.i.-.K�ple_ (�_!i��monice mundi".
f �':'_'!!1. J'.�-��-u�L_!o �_h�m. we owe the reconstructi<m. QL
_
_

: the "Pythagorean J)bJe.�' . . 9r. "Lambdoma",_a�. he calls

· it. after lamblichus, did not by any means snatch his dis-
, covery out of the. �i�, but _correctly in�erpret�d one of th�_ ­
-�h.olly neglected· pieces ..�J _Pythagorean research in Iam­
blichus' commentary on the lesser �rithmetic of Nico-...
:_m_�cb�1s, .where it says, " · Let u,s first take a unit, and de­
scribe from one corner of the same a figure in the shape of
the Lambda A (the Greek L), and let us fill out one
r1
 41
/ side of the line with the numbers adjoining the unit, going
just as far forward as we wish-for example 2 3 4 S
6 etc. Then we fill the other side, beginning with the next.
J largest part, which is one-half its size, with 1/3, 1/4, l/S;
: 1/6 etc. Thus we may observe the interplay of the corre­
� sponding reciprocals, and we shall see that balance of
/. interconnected and well-ordered relationship which we
& have just described." (11)
In this text of Iamblichus we have a wholly unusual,
indeed unique, indication of the Pythagorean number
system from ancient literature. If we write down these
instructions and add the tone values, we acquire a sort of
frame for an extraordinarily interesting group of tonal
numbers, the "partiaJ�tone coordinates'\ _wJiich are shown.
J�-d��-1ec0ncf
. T�ble at the end of the book (p. 157). To
convert this diagram into the Pythagorean "Lambdoma"
one need only place it with the point upward, that is, turn
it to the right far enough for the monochord to lie ob­
liquely on the side, and the diagonal (generating-tone
line) to stand perpendicular.• We call this group of tones
�P�.rtial�t��c. c��rd.i11.at�-��- because coordination means
"bringing into order" or "ordering", and because in tone­
logarithms the apex of the system 1/1 becomes trans­
posed to 0, and the ratios of the tones lying above the
generator tone ( 1/1 with logarithm to the base 2 =

0.000) become positive ( +), and the lower half becomes

negative ( - ) . This statement is meant only for those
who, mathematically schooled, take exception to 1/1 as
the starting point of a ucoordinate system". It would be
advisable for one to copy Diagram II on a larger scale
1 Thia deacription i» a trifle oversimplified. In order to obtain the true
Lambdoma, not only must the main dia&onal atand 11erpendicular, but
the two outermost lines must be bent in to an an1le of °"S de1 reea.-Tr.
42

and search through it for discoveries, which will come in

abundance. A short analysis of the diagram is to be
found on the page facing the diagram. I will point out its
fruitfulness for the interpretation of many details re­
lating to Pythagoras, at least in a few example�.
For instance, there is a Pythagorean fragment handed
down by J\i:!�t. ���e ;. �'Th7;hc;ie \\'o.rlcf is hut a harm<iny
-ai:i.4:.null_!���-��:.J.!�)_, and a·ne from Philolaus as well: �
f�Y .�!!!��-�.gjb�.9._tg _rrnrnb�r .��.Q..��rmopy beca'=1_�s..lt.
. _ .

Is not in th�.m-.'.' ( 13) fragments which have always been

1
only. superficially interpreted, according to very general
concepts of harmony and number. For the harmonicist it
is evident that here "tone" and "number" mean·some­
thing very concrete, namely, _the �.'.!Q!!�.-!lum�er" as the
basis of the whole of Pythagorism. Let us reflect on the
Story ·that. Py·� ��r��.,:.-sh:�r!!·Y· �-f�re his death, begg��-
his fa vori��- E.µpj_l _��-.!�!.!.��-_!he monoc�ord once again;
..

and consider as well the traditional tone-number technique"

in Pythagorism in particular. Another fragment runs:
:_Ha�!!!.��y_!� -�h�. �ni.��. <>,{ v�ri-colored things and the_
harmonizatio'!...9Lthj_ng _ � ...diver_s�ly. !lttu11e.Q._ I.t !� .w_tiolly
. sp!ung of opp.Qfil_tes,." ( 14) One can read this theorem
directly from the "Tabula Pythagorica11 in our second
diagram; here the vertical minor series �nd the hori.zontal
major series do actually cross one anoth�r; that is, the
tones and their chordal .s.ignificance really arise only fr.QIJ.L
-a·- ,imixture.�rnd uri.l�n �f. �pp�o-�}t�s" .. The theorems about
the limiting and the unlimited, or, as one would say today,
about the finitude and the infinity of the universe, arc of
course famous. "Out of th�.. l�miting.-�n4 the �mlim.�tcd,
the world and �q jn. jt. � put together"� says Philolaus.
·-({S) This also can be read directly from both main rows
 43

on the top and to the left on Diagram II. The row I 2

3 • n/ 1 . . . CX> I l goes toward the
. • unlimited, the
other row 1 � 1/3 ... l/n l/CX> steers towards
the limit-value l/CX> = 0, and is limiting (not "limited"
as it is ·usually translated) i we see how precisely the Py­
thagoreans have expressed themselves here. Most in­
tcr�sting of all is the following fragment preserved from
!�rnhl.i.t..h�� : "�bov� thcJimiting and the u11-limited stands
.

.f'o�_�h-� not c:re a ted p ri mal cause of a!l .c�_usc:;, a.s. cause
. - .

2£. thes� t�'! .���.�e�..�J.._c.rc:�t�.d·��.l}i.�gs.:.�' ( 16) If we here

a g aifioliscrve Diagram II an d consider .J.�_9/Q v� l u� -�s

symbol of_ thc:._mys��rio.u� . .Peity, comprehensible through

no conceivable app ro a ch , and see how pre c i se l y this sym­
. eated prim�l <;ause of all ca u� es.'.=.t�.a t
bol is_!he 11not-�r
. is, "the cause of the two causes of the unlimited arulth.�
J!m.i1i.�g;.;_
·· .th�;;·�-�h�·ll underst·;�ci°""how imp or tant this.
· "theologY. in thc:__�!!_�p� gf mathematical..fi gur�s'.'. . .�f 5!1�
,Pythagorea.!!!. was, and why they guarded so strictly the
I number-harmonic content of their esoteric te a chi ng. ( l 7)
 IV

Harmonica/ bacltgrounds of old wisdom teaching,· A. '10n Thimu1;

3000 years of harmonica/ tradition,· jreregui1ites /f>r h�rmonical
inquiry (historical); nAU 1roundin1 of ht1T1aonics; "Tiu Het1r­
in11 M tin"; "Tiu Sound of the World"; "E11ays on the Ectyje
of Harmonic J'alue",· "Fundamentals of a System of Harmo11ict1l
I'alu11"; "Harmonia Plantarum" ,· "T tlftbool of Harmonics",·
"Harmonica/ Studies",. short SUT'1ty of today's. harmonica/ inquiry.

One cannot gain a Pythagorean trammg from the

philosophical or historical treatises on Pythagoras, be­
cause these fail in part rn understand the true harmonic
motivation, in part belittle it, and in part do not even
treat of the harmonic motivation at all.
But if one receives Pythagorean trainin_g_ in �he only
way possible,. by working with _fy�_a1gg_ras' .. r.e���rch in:
_

stru-ment, "tfie.. monoc"hord� and with' the theorems result-

 45

ing from it ( 8) ���-_s��.�-.��-a��h.i.� whp�ly. char�cteri�tic.

-�- of_!�inking is related --��r.'?.1:1.g_ho�� �ot. only to t�e
ear!!G.�.e�.�!11>.�t to �lf!lost_'!!! '!! t_h e anci::nt myth,ol.ogi�3
and !'i�do:ffi .t�a�.h.i.�g� .�r:i. ��y fo!J!l whatever. JL�!.1.-.
__

�-�-�'!...!!!�_£���! ..�.!1!.i!.!l_a!!�- �ymbols i� which 1)�11:1-.

�!:.�� _t�ne�, ..�t. -���- ��4 Sl!�h P!�Y a role,_J!n_c!,,often the
obs�E!ty of.. th.is remarka_bl� m�mber-harmonics is un�.
__ __

veiled for the first time through harmonical analysis.

TTi�s-for. example runs a· section in a hymn over three
thousand years old, from the ancient Indian Rigveda
( 1164 B.C.), which belongs not only to the class of the
"obscure and enigmatic''. but to that of the "most strange,
most difficult to understand" ( 18) : "With the Gayatri­
metrum he shapes the song strophe, with the strophe,
melody; with the Trishtubh-metrum the song; with the
two-foot«-ti: _four-footed song another song; with the syl­
lable, one creates the _��!�;rte��· ( 19), whereby har­
monically it is especjaj!y �jgnifican�_!��� .���. _s�yen-�<?'!�d .
__

diatonic scale had already been clearly grasped even in

those -�!--�ly !imc��Jii .the. same-fiymn·�··v erse- Eleven . says :
"The wheel of nature's course, the_!_\\'..C:J'-:e:�p�k�d!. .�l!rns.
jn ��e Heavens, yet without ever perishing; on it, Oh
Agni I stand the children in pairs, seven h��d.r.e.�._1l_n_<.!.
twenty". Naturally, one can interpret this text in an astro-
7ymbolical way and say, "The wheel is the year, the -
,!Wcl_ye. _spokes. are the twclve,�onths,. the seven hu�dr�d
and twenty children the days and nights of the year, reck­
-oning it as three hundred and sixty days". (20) But if we
'comprehend the passage in its 'Value-form,1 that is, recog­
nizing in it the psychic background of the harmonica)
' W trt/orm is the term u•ed by Han• Kayser for the fusion in one en­
tity-the tone-number--of \•alue (the acoustical meanin& of a cone) and
form (its numerical correlace).-Tr.
46

theorems of the twelve-tone chromatic scale, an<l of the

1
"senarium 1the successi�n of the numbers 1-6, and
1

their factorial product ( l X 2 X 3 X 4 .Y� 5 X 6-:- 720),

then it acquires a far more general meaning.

Today we know that at the time of Pythagoras espe­

cially, that is, in the sixth century before Christ, an ex­
ceedingly close relationship, even an alliance, existed
.
between the seafaring Ionic Greeks and the maritime
Egyptians. Surely it is not a mere legend that Pythagoras
and Herodotus were in E g y p t and receivc.J instruction
in the priestly schools there. Further, if we take note of
the ancient connections of Egypt to Babylonia, and from
there to India ( 21), then it is more than plausible that
precisely the archaic elements of Pythagorism (symbolism
of tones and numbers. the doctrine of reinca rn �l t i on, and
others) reach far b a ck into remote antiquity, anc.I that
probably !�-�-- monochorc.J, as the simplest "scientific ex-_
perimental instrument", was already in use in the ear liest
eras of ma nki n d within the priest- and mystery-schools
as a means of demonstration of s p iritu al and symbolic
images. The making of ancie nt Egyptian and Babylonian
harps, shown in reliefs wl{i�h ha \ e come down to us, would
'

have been altogether im po s s i ble without an ::iccurate

knowlcJge of ton a l ( monochord) ratios, and the rel ics
of ancient Indian and Chinese ( 22) musical the ory and
phi l osop h y prove c l ea rl y that e\·en in th e e a rl i e st p er iod s
of Eastern Asiatic culture "harmonics"· in a q uite con­
cr e te sense was \\'OrkcJ at and investigate<..!. \Vhat in­
terests us aboutJ�ythagorean harmonics and what makes
a reconstitution of harmonics i mp o rtant is the first e mer _ -

genc c of the harmonic method from the oil"scurity which

 47

veiled it-in part i ntentionall y and in part through the

harmonic emblems that symbolically e mbelli s hed it-into ·
the dayligh t of a l anguage nearer to us in t he West. Here
too it became necessary to clear away much rubbish before
digging out the true core of Pythagorism. For this labor
we must thank_ Baron von Thimus who, by means of his
immense philological ability and factual knowledge, laid
bare this core in his work Harmonic Symbolism of An·
tiquity (If armo11ikn/c Sy;;bo-iik des A l1e1·1unis) ( 11 )
already mentioned. He relied especially on a text cited
above from lamblichus' Commentary on the Lesser Arith·
metic of Ni.comachus ( 23) w hich up till then had been
overlooked or not recognized in its full significance. He
fou nd therein a theo re tica l scheme for grouping tones and
number s, which I have called 11partial-tone coordinates''.
·and which doubtless must be regarded as the real technical
and harmonic background of Pythagorean number symbol.
i sm. The work of von Thimus i s primarily retrospective,.
orientecrto-·a:· p hilologic and antiq uarian view. He soL; ght
primarily to show that the ancient algebraic and propor.
tional content of number.harmonics constitu te s the back-
. ground for the most vari ous ancien t wi sdom t e ach i ngs
and their symbolism (China, Egypt, the anci ent Hebraic
-·book lt•J::;iralz, and others), ·and to trace the relationships
thus ascertained to the Mosaic teachings (Thimus was a
devout Catholic). To that enJ he made a stud�· of Greek
"enharmonics''i which in contrast to musicological at­
tempts up to his time, is as tho r ough as it is ne\\'. "l·:nhar·
. monies" today means identity of pitch: "for exampl e:- of
the tone.steps e and f Hat, or b and c Hat. But the ancient
Greeks o p c rate dwith whole tones, half tones, third tones,
a nd so forth, of v a ri ous sizes, which in the scale of C
major worked out to different pitches, of d, e, a, and b. all
48

of which belonged to one ha1·mony, that is, to 011c diatonic

step of the scale, but were still distinct through small
nuances of pitch. Jhus "enh�rmonj�s" was a�-���ce.dingly
fine differentiation of .P':I��. to�es, .which is a natural ·c-on.-:
-sequence of the Pythagorean groupings of tones and num­
bers....Thimus did not th�� think of harmonics as an in-
.

dependent science to b� revived. Only seldom in his work

are references made to other problems; these were re­
served presumably for a third volume, which was never
published. It sufficed_.!ii� �o have made accessible again
the enormous mate.rial of ci".i"�;1c._a�-d preclassic reli ��=
:·1r�m-- which he. pointed out a spiritual tie binding th�­
...whole of antiqui�. .
Thus we have here a spiritual attitude as typical as it
is characteristic, stemming from the beginnings of human
culture, of more than three thousand years' tradition.
Number harmonics or harmonica! symbolism either has
been entirely neglected by the modern historical and phil­
ological sciences, or at best has been pushed aside into
neighboring specialized fields, such as musicology, astron­
omy, symbolism, etc., to be treated there more or less cas­
ually. But even if we disregard the work of von Thimus,
names like Pythagoras, Plato, Ptolemaeus, Vitruvius and
Kepler, in w h o se writings harmonics plays not merel y an
ordering but a dominating role, should certa i nly have
drawn attention to harmonics as an independent field of
research. And if we realize that the great Newton ( 2 4 ) .

acknowledged his strong interest in harmonics, and that

_Leibnitz ( 2S) also occupied himself with harmonica! in­
vestigations, we may well express amazement that an age
 49

field of inquiry as harmonics, and in fact not even to have

noticed that here lay a most original and interesting field
of research.
Even in a purely historical sense we stand before a
scarcely touched virgin land; historians and philologians
interested in the problems of harmonics find here a wide
field to plough, sow and reap. To be sure, appropriate
equipment is required: a classic-humanistic education with
a command of Latin, Greek, and at least an elementary
knowledge of Oriental languages; familiarity with reli­
gion, mythology, and with the symbolisms of ancient peo­
ples; also a!J acquaintance with musical theory, the history
of sciences, especially mathematics and astronomy, the
history of architecture; and grammar (rhythmics, art of
poetry). The workshop of a historian of harmonics must
thus be somewhat more universally equipped than that of
an ordinary historian, and this requirement may perhaps
have been one of the reasons why so little has been done
in the field of historical harmonics up to now.
Let it be emphasized that this is meant only for re­
searchers who interest themselves in the his101·y of har­
monics. As prerequisites for a penetration into the ele­
me . ntal facts of harmonics proper, it is sufficient, besides
Jcnowing the experimental instrumentl the mopochord, to
have a simple familiarity with basic musical theor}', arith- .
. metic and geometry, and an inner receptivit}' to the
spiritual and psychic results of harmonic exp erimentatio n .
-· ··There· now arises the significant. question: docs ha r­
monics , apart from its historical value, still retain a prac­
tical. scientific. or even nhilosonhir int..-r,.!:t fnr 11� io...J:.h.e..
 50

harmonics based on its own foundation was necessary. It

seemed obvious first of all to link up with Pythagorean
fragments and begin the reconstruction from there. But
as an archaeologist or an art historian cannot reconstruct
the beauty of a whole building out of the relics of a ruined
temple and some fragment$ of sculpture, so is it impos- ·

sible to reconstruct the old harmonics from the frag­

mentary material on hand. There remained only one way:
to descend again into the depths of Pythagorean thought,
to experiment for oneself with the venerable monochord,
to set down with scrupulous accuracy the number- and
tone-laws thereby learned, and to interpret their meaning
with the help of our modern scientific techniques; In my
book Der horende M�!'sc.h,.(Th.e Hearing Man) (26) I
undertook the first comprehensive attempt at ·this. In the
first chapters of that book the number- and tone-laws of
harmonics were developed and in the following sections
characteristic harmonic data from the most various prov­
inces of human culture and knowledge were given. Its dis­
position here was purely pragmatic, that is, with certain
harmonic tools the most diverse fields were explored from
the outside. The same may be said for the lecture series
//om /{lang_ d�.e.lt (The Sound of the World), which
· gav�; in a more popular w�y a brief survey of harmonics
and its problems of interest to us today. In the meantime
some fields became especially salient, in which harmonic
analyses either promised a special result, or where some
historical themes could be treated or rectified. This was
done in my treatise A bhandlungen zur Ektypik" Harmon-.
ikaler Wertformen (Essays on the Ectype of Ha.rmonical
· Value-forms), a series of essays which told, among oth�­
• Realization, or entering any realm of existeocc.-Tr.
 SI

ers, of A. von Thimus and his Harmonical Symbolism,

and examined for the first time the theorems of Pythag­
oras from their inner harmonica} aspect, showing new,
until then unknown, relations between optical and acous­
·
tical principl�s in th�· tone�spe.ctra� In The Diary of Binn-
laftfic. essays. also sought out the harmonic aspects �f
problems in geology and crystallography, for which the
similar endeavors of the Heidelberg crystallographer,
Viktor Goldschmidt, could be used as a point of departure.
Now, the more the harmonicaU . y treated or treatable
range of subjects grew, and the more the multitudinous
harmonical discoveries emerged from the most diverse
fields, the more did I appear to myself like a musician who
commands his instrument well up to a certain point in
interpreting the literature, but who, outside of a primitive
theoretical knowledge, has as yet only a slight idea of the
laws by which he is really "making music". The necessity
became imperative to devClop and present separately the
fundamentals of harmonics, its theorems and the value­
forms flowing out of these. Only then could understand­
ing of the untold variety of nature and its spiritual mani­
festations from a higher, more universal, view be claimed.
I undertook this task in the _G_r�_'J..4.r�f.s.-�in.�J _Sy_�l.ems der
--�armonikalen Wertformen . (Fundament�ls of a System
.

of Harmonical Values) where only a groping and, in many

ways, a not quite successful beginnin g was made to put on
its feet theoretically an entirely new field, as yet not se­
cured by any previous works. This attempt was useful as
far as further h.armonical rese a rch was concerned, be­
cause it was possible, only with the help of t he technical
and conceptual tools developed in the Fundamentals, to
treat next another specialized field, that of plants in the
 52

book Harmonia Planlarum. The treatment could now be

much more comprehensive, and research int�· individual·
problems more thorough, than had been possible 'lere­
tofore.
Since there had been many requests to develop a didac­
tic textbook for beginners, it then seemed desirable to
correlate, in a systematic and pedagogic manner, all the
harmonica! facts and laws which were scattered through
the previous books. Accordingly the Lehrbuch der Har­
monik_ (Textbook of Harmonics) a ppeared, which, using
the guiding thread of harmonic theorems, discusses the
whole field of harmonics, communicates a series ·of new
discoveries and especially grants a wider scope than be­
fore to the relationship between _harmooi�.�1 royt�o!ogy
. •

and religion. A series of writings, Harmonikale Studien

(Harmonical Studies), makes it possib!� through individ­
ual essays to select certain problems from diverse fields
and to submit them to harmonical analysis. Th.e first two
studies, the H armonikale�..-'feiluJ!9 . 1./l-'�·"·on_ (Harmonic.
Canon of Division}, from the sketchbook of t. he �rchitect
�----

.
and master mason Villard d��.H.o.nnecourt (13th G�>· and -
.Die Forrri dt;r .9.�!�..!llH.. .4.�m__Tongesel� en_lwicke/J (The
Form of the Violin, Developed from the Laws of Music),
... ·--.----··
are soon to appear.
I would like to sketch the course of my previous har­
monic investigations in a brief summary:
The fundamental phenomenon of the tonal number
contains within itself a synthesis of two world�: of nature.
.
and of the soul. This phenomenon has its own laws. Out
. .
of them arise the harmonic ... theorems, a formal· syntax of
the harmonic language. !hese . . harmonic theorems in turn
'Both these studies have since bun published in German.-Tr.
 53

comprise the building material for "harmonicaI values",

=�Jt!nd '!! psycho-physical ar�hite�ture, as the only back­
ground on which harmonics as a science is possible. Be­
sides Jb�. .'!i�p�J p.�rception of t.he. w.orlg _(��sl�esis), har­
monics regards as of equal value something heretofore
unknown, . .t.�c .�.Hr:.al._p_e_r��JHiQ!LQ.f ��-� .�9��d.J�.kr�.a.sis). ..
-�!g�_?.-1.1. �?.-r�9n.ic�.l (or. ms. can be !!J!:P �r i e nce d .inwardly
. . t

.�hey ��n ..�e ��ecked for their accuracy by the psyche ( 27)
�hich here is judge and interpreter, whereas the mind
wi.th its logical approach can only be a mediator. The
·great realm of the unconscious does not belong directly
to discursive (conceptual) thought, but can be grasped
by adequate forms of harmonics, then modulated ectyp­
ically in the most varied fields and examined in those
forms which come to the surface. In harmonics the ear
as much as the mind plays the role of sensory mediator,
a decisive role. Because the car possesses before all other
.
senses the advantage ·aT-�-·dir�ct, � p�i��i (p���e�isiing) -
J?_ij��ii9� of nu�bers� we. ��� -hea·r-· ii.�.unbcrs a·s tones..
Now since all harmonic number relations arc proportions,
and since eachproportToii ca� be represented visually, the
possibility exists of a direct transposition of the auditory
foto the visual. . This .audition
. . �. .
. ..... 'L'irnel/c is then the true
realm of harmonic symbolism, in which the harmonic
forms become spiritual.
 v

From the harmonica/ workshop,· tone-spectra,· crystals; 9eolo9y,·

the earth one chord,· Jrirnt'1al 9tntralio11; harmony of tbt
sjlures ,· Kejltr; Third Law of Kepler.

Now, as a glimpse into the harmonic workshop, I would

like to mention briefly some concrete results of research.
Of course, these may be indicated only sketchily in their
latest stage of development; for a closer examination,
reference should be made to the sources.
Anyone who has looked through a spectroscope (an
optical apparatus with a glass prism that dissolves the
light into a band of colors-the spectrum) or who has
seen pictures of those colored bands of the optical line­
spectra with their sharp black lines, will seldom forget the
wonderful impression made on the eye and the mind.
Every chemical element, every compound, indeed each
 SS

.!!'a��i-�!_�_r��gh!__!� �-g�o�, ev�n up to the fixed stars an_q

neb�lae, has its own unique c1!._a_!.�_c_��!i.��i<:_�pec�ru�:. It is
something like a musical staff-notation on the rainbow­
like color band, which gives evidence of a mysterious in­
dividuality in the material world, yet to which we do not
seem to have any inner relationship. The mathematical
laws of those spectrum-lines have been examined closely,
and the entire modern atomic theory was built on these
laws. But even before then, Newton had the feeling that
matters other than mathematical relat{oiis haa-·a"""part-i"il-
Th�=�nffJi�frie((!"� ��mpare t· he most important lines of_
..the �!l's spectrum with the musical scale. This attempt
later was repeatea seve·r�T timeswithout"Success; it is only
through harmonics that we have been enabled, by means
of the tonal spectrumJ to approach the complicated �a�s.
of the optkal spectra, indeed to clai11y" an'd. make under­
standable thr��gfi'liarmonical analysis of the tonal spec­
tra some significant, up till now unexplained, phenomena
of the optical spectrum! The essential result of this analy- ;
sis however is not only the mathematical but also the
tonal finding, that is, the recognition that here, in t�e�e .
first building stones of matter and in their essence, par­
�tlc�far�·spi_r_i�u�l forms arc at work, fo_rms wti.ich we carry ...
in the depths of our unconscious, and which enable us to.
c!P_�ri. e��c the world of tone in foy and in sorrow. From
the standpoint ·or this knowledge, one should consider so
current a problem as the splitting of the atom and its first
tangible result: the atom bomb. It no longer directly con­
cerns mere reason, technology, economics, and politics,
but our soul, and th.erefore our responsibility towards
these very problems increases immensely. ( 28)
The harmonics of crystals, in the study of which C. S.
 56

Weiss (29) an d V. Gol d schmi d t (30) were already en­

gaged, has more than an esthetic meaning (31). Jf..�he
. same value-forms wi,th which the mind gauges tone rela­
tions are at work in �ne structure. of crystals, we ·can un­
-��st�n_d �t.. �nc5 the cur��us P!f.£hO,�(>_g��.1. atti,nity ·that_·
. m�f!.kind _feel� for precious s.tone�.J.. wh_ich. indeed arc noth­
i.l!g. i:nore than rare crystallization.�,, and the superstitions.
that cling to them appear in a �i�e_ rent light. There are
psyshj£_J��E��-!>���en. 01!!� ,!!!_4 ..!'!!��-� and we can
.
make them understandable again incontestably through
harmonics. This harmonics of crystals is concentrated
formally in a ���ence'�of t�e.. 4eveloprµent of �r.y�tal_
surfaces. The typical threefold step of the musical ca-
..d��ce, ·c,n· which all classic and pre-classic music rests, and
which can be read directly from the harmonic diagram
(32). is identical with the�e.. tt..c.ps.of cli�l�£ti�_.(the­
-�J.s, antithesis, synthesis) known to our logical faculty.2
Thu� in three quite different realms: music, crystallog-.
�.�aphy, �'!c!.log�fa.� h �_ii �.-�:rie� �ljh.ose s_or!�spond�
ences which ar:_e . chari!c,;�er.isti_c of harmonics, whose com­
.
mon point of reference in the depths of our mind we then
designate with the name of the corresponding value­
form, herein called ��.!:P.:4.i�le£!�£': (33)
One of the most characteristic phenomena in geology
is the layer-like structure of the inside of the earth. The
body of the earth does not consist of a thin firm skin and
the rest a fluid mass, as was formerly supposed, but is
1 The author here posllibly demands too much of the general reader'•

,
knowledge of music. In m u sic a cadence mean• a type of harmonic pro­
gression which servee a formal purpose: to delineate the end of a mu1ical
phrase, or of a musical sentence, or the conclu1ion of a piece, or of a
maj or section thereof. The nu�.eric pr9p9.rtjon1 o f these cad.�!!,£�• ':!�
here related to tho.se ob.served Jn �ry1ta � �ormation.,_; Tr.
.
.- .
.
•

··see Plato's dialectic, Hegel'• dialectical method.

.. ·

. -
 57

organized according to its density and probably also ac­

cording to its substance, into distinct levels quite sharply
separated from one another. This surprising discovery
was arrived at through the observation of earthquake
waves; different zones in the inside of the earth were
·
faun�-wh�!'..�. wa.Y�_tlV�r� .r..�Jf��t�.d i"n-differ�.�t ways_. Now
�e compares the radii of these zones with the string
length measurements of the overtone series of the pri­
mary major chord, which is also a physical (that is, a
natural) phenomenon, then we obtain�!fia�_ic �tructur� . _
of the insi�� . .<?f tb� . . e_a,n!i0 ( 34) in which ...th�. �easure­
ments o"f-the different earth layers show a remarkable
�gr�ement with tho�e of the chord numbers._!!!._!h.«: .s��e..
way �firll!..£!:!!!.LC?f ...the .earth fall� . .int�. the .�e.v.enth
octaye {the w.�e�..�f �J;'.C:,�t_i9�)..!!!4}eCC!.1,!!C!.S��nd���$?.-!1d:-_
!!>le morph�!.g�ic�fu'_: ��·· · tb.�. .. �'.cpJlq�os.ation" of th�..
·
rhythms P.!�sc_eg[ng _. frQID. t�at point-the earth, one
mighty ch2.llll An image which perhaps says little to .our
intellect, but which speaks all the stronger to our heart.
Also the primeval generation of the elements of life
and the development of new forms appears in a new light
in the harmonical analogy. How can one explain this ap­
pearance of new things? The theory of evolution es­
tablish,cs mere facts, but gives no interpretation of them,
of how and why new forms suddenly appear from pre­
existent material, be it "dead" or living. "Differentiation"
of a primordial matter? "Mutation" of a living sub­
stance? These are names only, statements, but not inter­
pretations.
In the simple series of overtones we now have a highly
interesting analogy heretofore not regarded from this as­
pect. Namely, if we consider the numerical basis of the
58

overtone series l c 2c' 3g' 4c" 5 e" . . . which is

identical with the series of whole numbers3 or their
reciprOCJ!ls�, we see at first merely an accumulation. of
unities, ah alike and in no way distinguishable from one
another, in each case the unity of a vibration (see Table
I). That is the numerical, material finding. But this series
presents itself quite differently if we do not measure it,
but hear it. In the first instance we notice only the con­
tinual summing up of one and the same thing, namely,
the vibration or the wave unit 1/1. In the latter case we
hear something entirely new, the ever recurring birth of
new tone values. Obvious as it may seem that by adding
one more vibra tio n tu five vibrations per time unit, six
vibrations per time unit will result, it must appear wonder­
ful, indeed mysterious, that we hear at one time {when
1/1 = c) the tone e, and at another· time the tone g. We
discover the same in all partial tone differentiations: as
we experience a quantitatively understandable increase in
numbers 1 + 1 = 2; 2 + 1 = 3, etc ., we a"tso discover a
surprising generation of new values: le 2c' Jg' 4c"
Se" et c.
·

However, while this elemental generation is always

based upon faultless mathematical and material dimen­
sions, it is nevertheless understandable in a higher sense.
That means: we have here the so long sought after and
never before attained theoretical representation of a
synthesis of material progression and the birth of new
values. ( 35)
The concept of the harmony of the. spheres ( 36) is .a.s..
old as the-flrs.t 'awakening of mankind to consciousness.

'In terms of frc11ucncics of vihrations.

'le l/2c' I/lg' l/k" 1 /Sc" in terms of sering or wa\'C lcngthii.
 59

First in myth, then in astral symbolism, and as the inte­

grating constituent of nearly the whole of mankind's
poetry, this concept became the prc':upposition for as­
trology and the first astronomical inquiries of all ancient
peoples._!(�pJ�!._I!_����--����- �he first_ who gave it that.
-�l!..nd. �tion �hich_ lifu i� out of mere faith and brings it
·-��.!1��.. wi!�--�-�ern scientific thinking.
.
In his main work,
the Harmonicc munar·"( 3 7 ) ,. . a work which Kepler de-
scribed as_h.is_ .�o.�t.imp�rt�n! and tc.; which throughout his
life he devoted his special love, he shows, with a vast
amount of material still substantially valid today, that
between the mutual velocities of the planets there exists
a--g��ilt.�u�ber �f musical harmoni��i .. Be cU�coy_ered_ _

his famous Third Law of Planetary Motion, which is_

..
containcd"iii thi- s work, through typical hariiio'nlcal think­
ing,_ . �he so-ca_ tiC<l 9cta ve reductfon :. Ttis-· s�g�ific-ant f�r .
. . .
·

'"Kepler that just this discovery, 11tiU ��ns,i.Q�.r�c!.,!?Y u.s: to�

day as the only worthwh�l.e p_art of the H armon�fe _mu�di,,
..
�����_j�}!��- �oiJis . on�y �s.. -��e.. �mf>_n_g m��Y _g_t_her.
__

11harmonics". We do Kepler an injustice, and bar our­

.
selv�� . f���-the deeper understanding of him and his in­
tention, if we consider his harmonics only as a stimulant,
over which we should hurry as fast as possible toward the
normal order of the day. For Kepler the formula of the.
Third Planetary Law-that the squares of t�e per,i9c;ls
of planetary revolutions behave like cubes of the great
axes-al\ :b2 = 1-was not the main thing, but the J,ar- .
,_mo11ice nmndi, the harmony of the universe, within which
the Third Law only plays the role of one among many
... c"onfirmations .. Naturally one can USC the Third Law to
predict astronomical events, but for anyone who has read
the works of Kepler and allowed his enthusiasm to trans-
60

port him, _!�1.�r�� J:t�rm9nic _p_rOP<?.�ti��.s are �pirhM.�!

__realities .. He knows that here we arc not dealing with
·mere formulations a·nd practical applications,. but with the
truly shattering experience of Tat twam asi: This is you.
There are powers above and shapes written in the sky
which sound in your own soul, which concern you most
vitally, and which belong to the Godhead as much as do
you in your innermost self.
 VI

Botany; bra11d1 1ro411/J,; ltaf sltelra; Gorllu's 1rototyp1 of /ta/

forms,· Linnaeus,· uzuality; t/,1 tlirtt �in1dom1 in nature; t/,1
ear,· tli1 saail slit/I; tar canals; t/11 1ar as organ of timt and
1111.u; 11nsiti'1ity of tlit 111.r for timt inttr'1t1.ls; recijrocity of 1y1
11.nJ 1ar.

We shall continue our expedition through the harmon­

ical workshop with some results of researches in biology,
physiology, and psychology .
. In contemporary botany, n1orpjiology, that is1. the_
theo_� o( the _s�apes o� plants, h�s. b�en �uch eclipsed hY
__ ..

physiology, the theory of the functions of plants. Even

-the rc.markabi c and mysterious laws of the. chromosomes.
those singular patterns of the smallest particles inside
the plant cells, particles of the core of the cell and the
bearers of heredity, have been more or less bent to the
 62

purely utilitarian. Chromosomes are valued for the pur�

poses of cultivation, as are the functional laws i'nd the
chemistry of plants, where again the application to prac­
tical use of vitamins and other properties claims the chief
interest. One glimpse into the green world, however, shows
us at once that the tremendous multiplicity of forms in
the plant world was surely more significant to the Creator
than the question of their usefulness to man and beast.
\Vhat are the forms of plants anyway, and what accounts
for their great variability? What arc the fundamental
laws of plant forms? How do they differ on the one hand
from those of minerals, and on the other hand from those
of animals?
I have investigated these questions for many years, and
have succeeded in discovering some parallels through
harmonical concepts. While these failed to ��Ive many a
riddle for me, nevertheless they brought me to a deeper
understanding, and allowed me to "interpret" these rid­
dles in "human" terms. (38) To begin with, there are.the
laws which govern the process of ramification (branch
growth) in plants, laws which in most instances explain
the variety of outward forms, the so-called dichotomy,
which operates from the stem to the veins of the leaves.
JJ_one draws a graph of _t.h�.!tring_lengths usecl . for divj:_
�sion of the monochord, one can transform these tones into
.?ngles . .(For ��a.mp.le, 2/3 of the s�rin
_ g l_ength, with �h�
. tone g, is related to the full string length l / l, and its
tone c, as is 2/3 of the circumferenc� "of�- circle = 240°_·
to the entire circumference, 360° . Thus the �one g is
__

. transformed into the arJgle 240°.) 1;.; this.. way, one im­
mediatdy- acquires a ,p·�rltitude ·or· morphological pl���­
�type·s·,- which differ from one anQther only thro�gh the
 63

arrangements tl_t.h.�i!. . ��n� -��ctra.. a�� .angles, arrange-

.

ments which arc not at all arbitrary but are subject to

defi ni te lawful ha f.lJl onic pr i nci ples of selection. The "leaf
spectra" give an explanation of the inner structure and
the edge formations of the leaves; they are identical with
the tone spectra and thereby i n d icate a correspondence
, with the el ementary structure of matter. If one _pr9j��lt
�ll tones within the space_qf..9_11.c:. octav�. (the s a m e octa y e
�perat io� that Kcple_�pp li e� _in .. �i-� lf.�rrn_oni�e mun di)
.
! . .

. with t�.�lr. �J!gl�!_!�e!ched in. a . specific. way, one obtains

!he P!£��p� o� l��f form, which means that the framing
interval of the octave, being the very basis for any music
making and sensation, contains within itself the form of
the leaf. This lends a new "psychological" support to
Goethe's metamorphosis of plants, which, as· we know,
seeks to .derive the development of plants from the leaf
form. The many forms of blossoms, 2 ( 4, 8 ... ) , 3 ( 6,
12 . ) , S ( 10 . . . ) , can be understood harmonically
. .

as morphological parallels to the numbers of the triad le ,

..
2c' 4c" &c"' . . . , Jg' 6g" 12g111 . and Sc" 1 Oe"'
• •

. .(sec Table I). SomctiJl1e�jt �v-�n. happens that differ-

.

�Ll�!l�t�YP.�S �pp��.r w. i tbi!J.��ne .�nd the same blossom,

for example in the passion-flower with its five-part petal
and stamen arrangement, and its three-part pistil. Just
consider what it means that one blossom within a si n gle
...e.lant exh_ipjJ� an exa ct divis.i9n hH9. -�hr.�e and at t h e same
. .

��ifl. �Q.-�.Y�·. If one does not' want to accept a logically

.

reasoning intelligence, nevertheless one must admit that

in the soul of plants certain form-carrying prototypes­
herc musicaf"tfifr.Clsan.d"llfths-· arc at work, which, as in
�;i�,·�s.hapc tf1e blossom for·��· as intcrvais. From this
pc"°rsp·��t'iv.e, the inge n iou s plant system of Linnaeus, so
. . ..
64

often derided, acquires a "psychic" rehabilitation. With

his classification scheme, Linnaeus hit on the psychic nerve
of plants. There is nothing artificial or abstract in the
number of stamens and pistils, but, on the contrary, the
inmost psychic form-impulse of the plant comes· to the
fore, something often described in creative divination by
poets speaking Qf _!_he_.JJ!i\I.Y�l.Qu.�. ffiH.!iC �.Lthe _blossom.
Nature created genus, sexuality, for the first time in and
on the plant. There is in harmonics a very strange and
informative interpretation of the problem of sex which
at first may seem abstract but, if we know how to experi­
ence, how to "hear", it, a light will be thrown on the rid­
dle of sex and its first appearance in the plant· kingdom.
In every . chord, the third (the "third" step of the di-
·-a-to�ic ... s.c �le, whlCh 1$·.jhe:::•�fifth���--�.tio,. ��.cordingjQ·..
·

yLbr��i_P.!!S �I.'.-�trin
. g le. pg�hsJ.j� t_�e "sex" tone, dep_ending .
'?..
. n wh�th.er .i� '?�.��r:s ..as �.mai<:>_r third i!l a m�jor chore! �.I.'.
-
.as a minor third in a m.ipQr .chord. Our_.��o mQ.<krn.
...

i!io des; �h� ��fo� and

__ .. . . �in.�r �.calcs,. �cst_�p�n this 4��-�r:..
ence. Thus, the third is realized through the fifth vibra­
-tion or string length of a given unity. This five in the plant
. kingdom is not only sigl!ificant .because a greatnumber o( ..

blossoms show a five-leafed arrangement, but it is also

-Important as a· morphological manifestation. In cont�ast
to the world of minerals, � five ap�c:_��-f��- !��--�-�st
_
tim � �s a. . morph_qlog!�al (:On!t!�IJ�. i_n _lh_e_ �l�_r:it -�i�gdo_m,
-
_

not onlv in the number of blossoms, but als.o in the main

_

series of the laws of the spacing of leaves (the phe­

nomenon of the music a l third). There are, of course,
.�OmC five-faceted Crystals (pyrite ari"<i" Others) hut in the
I

inner structure of the crystal axes the number five is

missing as a formative principle of ratios. Thus the num-
 65

ber!ve first appears in th_c_!��l�_Qf P.!�!l!_s_�� �n is�l.�t.�d_.

..

form-constant. It is in har.!!!.Q!.!!£J�miq9J9g}'....lli.�.-�e;t.: . ��­

tr,nc, and we have in this emphasis of the �hird and its
spl@"rigl�����J�.�n4 -��no� .thirds at least one of the
:fil!her��-u-�. �f_?.OW�_ prot�typical reasons why sex came into
manifestation for the first time in the rc_al111 of plants.
-�"()rie" who is musical enough not on.ly to distinguish be-
tween a ��J�.� . �.h.!�d and a min2.� .t�irg,,_ but who can
.

recognize in the sound of the two the character of long­

ing, which lies in the innermost nature of this interval­
the singing in thirds if!_ (<>.� SQ.[lg�1__for exampl�, _pr t�.e­
...

third as theI!!L mc9.i!9J .�l.E�ll}.anti� h.�.r�<:>ny_ and so

.

forth-acquires a deeper understanding. The sexual

aspect receives thereby its relation to the es�ence of life it­
self; that ulonging" which is latent in the depths of in­
organic matter and of the atom, becomes for the first time
expressed as sensitivity in plants, and necessarily gives
birth to the polarity of sex. Therefore sexuality is decisive
in two ways for living creatures: first, as the physiological
factor in the thrust toward higher development of or­
ganic forms, and second, as a psychic and eventually a
spirit��L��c:. <;>gnitj�.I! of the eroti.c_. as an impulse toward .
-�·t.he cJ.iY.ine,,_fqr_ wbj�h th.�-·��-�_irt; Jh�i�g.wq_rL4..�.h��·-
Harmonics affords us its own views of the ascending
rungs of nature i� the three kingdoms-mineral, vegeta­
ble and animal. To understand this one must already have
some knowledge of the acoustical imagery of harmonics,
best described as the diagrams of audi1ion visuelle. But
even so, one may say that in the crystal, harmonics . devel­
.
_°-.P..�-����-�!� . .f.�9!!1_. ��ct �T<i�nd a cent er� i� the plafi.t a
polar division of this center evolves by which limitation is
cxpla}ncd, �amcly; the death of all more highly o.rganized
 66

life and, most of all, the· reaching of this limit as the goal
OTaTilivlitg" fc)riti�'rlius death re c_C!LVe.�j �� �-��.!ling as an-
l�<:t�Ji!.1g_P.���C.Y_.�L���--living__!�i�g_ ��-i��.'- reachif!it
..

the realization · of the absolute, returns to matter and

.
spirTt-th"�ir: · �frlc�-�Ts.-tli�.fr.· d!!�; _._tQc_ re�iization of new
forms. In the animal, two autonomous· harmonica_l ·sy_s­
tems. ���- togeth�i=- in �-ge.neratin"g-:tonai ·c�nie�, and t�c
''s.cale circl� s p lay a g�eat pa �t · in_. thcToC:aTizing of or-:
" .

gans and-In the llmitatio� of forms. Consequently the

�animal leaves the soil and the voice is born. All these
conclusions result from the harmonica) analysis- of the
most important representatives of the three realms of na-
ture. (39) ·
The ear as a sense or:gan is ···of
···---· ·-- the great�st impor �ang,
as t�_e _ehysiological basis of harmo�i�s. In terms of evo-
- -- -·--·--- ·· - · ··-

lution the ear as·•"ii""Clevefo-ped--orga-n is a rdativcly late

creation. Not so the sense of hearing, the acoustical sen­
sitivity of the living creature, which reaches far back into
the beginnings of the animal kingdom. If one adds to that
the latest results of research in ultra sound waves, one
may accept and presume a comm9_�si9._mt.r 9.f. matter �-t
. .I.a��� f�r.a.���!tJ.�al st!�u!i. As far as the car itself is con­ .
__

cerned, in its highest development it is an extremely com­

plicated mechanism, whose separate functions are not by
any means completely understood. We know however­
to take only a few outstanding examples-that the so­
called Bas i lar membrane, a tiny structure of 0.8 square
millimeters, is a technical miracle, compared with which
our highly sensitive acoustical membranes are primitive
artifacts. The Basilar membrane leads the tone vibra-.
tions, which i�e ·filtered by the outer eardrum and by the _

"oval window" of the middle ear, into the auditory nerve.

 67

The center of the inner ear, the cochlea (Latin for snail
�li.�ll) �)i�� �h.e Jor� �f � spiral:. For the first time in the
·

histor1 of physiology, harmonics is in a position to ex­

plain why this central structure has exactly the form of a
snail shell. The harm�ni��L�Q r:1.�·�E_�r�J_ (10) and iJs spa.-_
.
tial developmentsh<i.w that the ear does not have the
precise form of a snail shell by accident, hut was so ar­
ranged by the creative power according to the laws of
tone.
What still remains more or less puzzling for physiology
is why the semi-circular canals are placed in the ear. They
serve preeminently" a·s·-organs "of balance; hu-t wha-t"-lias-·
balance, tliatis-to-s:iy�-oricntadon ·i� ·si>ace---to.do-with­
!.coustics ?. Here alsonarmoiifcsfinds �n e�planation in the.
tertium coniparationis (the third of the comparison) o f.
.
.�b�-.m!ti.!!_partl"il:fonecoordin'atc"s,· si�cc the tonal space_
41) is const" ructc"d"'i)""y the law of the overtone series,
.
,:rhose t EC:�-=-c�o�lii�tes co�respond to the three spatial
directions of the semi-circular canals of the car. Who­
.
cver ltiiowsth-e developiii-ciii:' 'i)f the parabolas 'of the
partial tones ( 42) is struck by the idea that even the
curved ·form of the individual canals could be a rudimen­
tary spat' i.�1 geometric 'expression of these tone parabolas.
In summary, we may say that the car was created by
tone; as was the eye by light: the beautiful couplet of
"Goethe, ..

"Were not the eye like the 5tm,

How rou/d we 5ee the ligh1?" 1

t "war nid111fa1 A Uflf 10/llltllha/t,

Wit ionnlm ..,;ir Jai Liclit trblidtn1"
 68

is valid also if it is transposed to the form of the ear.

Nature seems to have provided a special safeguard for
the inner ear; it lies surrounded by bones deep within the
skull, hence the difficulty of treating pathological condi­
tions. Furthermore, the auditory nerve is in a closer, more
.Eirec�!. rel�-��'?.n�hip t� the whoie- nervous system and· the.
sensory spheres than is the nerve of the eye. The latter
-15 directly -�?i:i�e�ted �ith th� bi«iin, and thus' is tied.to-the_
sphere of reas�n. Related to this is the fact t. hat generally
-ilie"fiard of hearing give way much sooner to ps.ychic dis­
turbances than do those with defective eyesight-a fact
well known to every psychiatrist. The physiologist E. von
Cyon, a cofilempQW.Y-f>Ll:I�,lmholtz, referring.to. �.J��.L
as the -��g�� Qf spatial and.J.cmporal sens�·( 43), called.iL
- the 11���P.!?_r:t��!. �f.�JJ9µr �ense �rg�,nsu.. From the
..

standpoint of akroasis we not only can subscribe to this

..

but are also in a position to explain it by pointing to the

details of the structure of the car.
In the special sense of "harmonica! techniques", the
-�eJ!S.i�ivity of th�-he-aitflyear.�()'r-iame. cJ'iffer. ences is of dc�-­
.

cisive importance, a psychologic.ai fact up.on which rests

the whole harmonical system of tone-numbers. This sen­
sitivity expresses itself ultimately in the accuracy with
which it picks out the most important intervals-octaves,
..fif.ths, fourths, thirds, whole tones-and the number ratios
related to them. Naturally the car here is only a mediator.L
-and w.ith_o�1tth . .e pf�_t5>!>.:Pe_� i� the psyche, the octave, fifth,_
etc., would not be complete forms. But the _ear affords
the possibility of disting;,iishing precisely these fime-differ­
ences (rates of vibration) and, in regard to intervals·, to
judge spontaneously numerical ratios as tonal relations.
Thus we are able to recognize psychic forms directly
 69

which otherwise we could only prove right or wrong after­

wards by measurement or other haptical manipulation.
Concerning the sensibility for time difierencu Helmholtz
says ( 44):

11In comparison with the other nerve apparatus,

the car shows a great superiority; it is to an eminent
degree fitted for small time differences, and was as
such long used by astronomers. J!.l�..�.!!Q��-t_h.a� �f_
two pendulu�s beat dose to ea�h Qther, the ear can
. �i!�in g.uish up to about 1/200 of a second whether
.
their beats. coincide �r not. Th�..':Y� �ould fail by.
1/24 of a second, or even by much greater fractions
·of-a �ccond, if it had to decide whether two flashes of
·

light coincided or not."

Naturally the ear, like everything else in the world, has

its limits. But anyone who has made experiments on the
monochord and thus been able to distinguish easily hun­
dreds of tones and tonal ratios as psychic forms within
an octave-not merely the twelve tones as in our music
today-will find Helmholtz' assertion entirely confirmed.
The great mathematician Euler ( 45) speaks similarly of
a "perception of the order" of the tone ratio�.· _The ear
.
is a special organ for the spontaneo�s apperception of
··specific numerical ratios of the vibra�ions, and of the
psychlc.lc)rms. (intervals) related a priori with them. This
· -

· faculty is exercised . and practiced by every piano tuner,

every string player, indeed by every performing musician
and listener and above all by composers. To make clear
the principles prevailing behind this phenomenon, and to
 70

interpret their meaning, is the very aim of harmonics.

Thus harmonics transcends the special frame of the
.

merely musical and exten4s 1ts�lf �o �k,_-oasis, . to th..�..

. .
--·-· . .. ... . . .. . . . .. - - . , . . ... . ..... . ·-· ....-
.. .

"hc-aring" of the universe. _(For the universal validity of

tonal ratios in general, see further in Chapter XIII.)
In what relation does the ear stand to our other im­
portant sense organ, the eye? Here we can observe from
harmonics a mutual relation which by itself is so simple
that one is surprised at not finding it mentioned in 'the
pertinent technical literature. It is, however, precisely
from the function of these two senses that we arrive at
the confirmation of ·an exact reciprocity, and thereby
clarify at least in one respect the relation of these organs
to each other. ( 46) Thus we may state the case briefly:
If we listen to any series of tones, let us say octaves,
and write them down according to their frequencies (vi­
brations) that is, aCCO.rding to their material, haptical
-·- ..
I

1 2 4 . . . 8 . . . . ... 16
"" .
c c' c" c"' c

we see clearly a pcrspecti't•e of this tone succession, in this

cise a geometric series. This however is only· the material
,
finding, because we do not "hear , them th.is w�y at all.
Everyone knows that we feel or hear the different octaves
not as unequal but as �qua/ inten:als, thus:

1 2 4 8 16
c c' c" c"' c""
 71

In other words,.. th���P��c-measurabl� side of the tone

phe�omenon1 ��� t�n� nur:nber, appears.as a perspective,
.
•
. ...

but the 1:1coyst!�!.1JY .. experienced. tone value appears as

equidistant, as the spacing of the octaves on any keyboard
·�hows. With the eye, however, the same phenomenon is
reversed. That we see in perspective is known to every­
one, but_\!,�. ���rience a perspective all the more clearly
when the distances between objects are the same (railroad
tracks, telegraph poles, avenues of trees, etc.). In other
words, the haptical, measurable side of the optical phe­
nomenon, that which we see, is here alike, equidistant; the
optical impression on the other hand, how we sec it, is in
perspective.

Eye: Ear:
Sight = perspective Hearing = equidistant
What one sees= What one hears =
equidistant perspective

Eye and ear functionally are in a reciprocal relationship

to�each other. To say of things that they are reciprocal,
..though, means they are complementary. Thus 3/4 and
4/3 arc reciprocal, and multiplied, result in l. What is
lacking in the haptical way to the eye is given to the ear
and vice versa. What the eye lacks in the realm of sensibil­
ity (seeing, hearing) the er.r has and vice versa. With the
-uncm·ering of this relationship we stand before one of
the deeper reasons for the existence of these organs as
our two most important sense organs. Since this reci,Rr.Q.£.-:.
it� <:».!Y.�!.�pc_��i.�c ��4 _cg4Ldj!�.a�ncc_ shows itself as the
...

fundamental polarity of partial tone rows:

72

l/Sab111 l/4c,. l/Jf., l/2c, It/le j2/lc' 3/lg' 4/lc" 5/le"

perspective equidistant

it becomes one of the most important harmonical value

forms, that of the 11incipient relationship" ;2 also that of
"harmonica} ambivalences" ,3 whereby it then touches di­
rectly on the perception of major and minor, which is in
another form from the space-time problem.• This reci­
procity therefore partakes of a series of important cor­
respondences, which actually appear to demand the for­
mation of the eye and the ear as two of our most essential
sense organs.
2 Grundriu eines Systems du Jiarmo11ikalm Werlformen (Fundamentals
of a System of Harmonica! Value-formi1), p. 213 ff.
3Ibid. p. 3M ff.
'Ibid. p. 305 ff.
 VII

II. Stifttr ,' proportions; arc/1itutuu; harmonica/ canon of di'lli­

sion,· modtrn archittcture ,· acoustiu of halls,' painting and uulp­
ture,· J,epsius" 11 lbruht Diirer ,· importanu of study of propor­
tions,· Wynelun,' modern painting,· remarltable symmetries in
clauical worlts ,' musical theory" harmonica/ instruction in con­
strflatorie1 ,· modern music" "The Shape of the Violin".

In Adalbert Stifter's tale Brigitta is a hymn to beauty

that always moves me deeply whenever I read it:

"In human nature lies that wonderful thing,

beauty. We are all attracted by the sweetness of ap­
pearance, and cannot always say what makes it
lovely. It is in the universe, it is in the eye, but it is
not always in features that are formed according to
what is considered acceptable. Often beauty is not
74

seen, because it is in the desert, or because the p r oper

eye has not looked-often it is p r a yed to anq idol­
ized y et is not there: but it is not w" nt ing in any
place where a heart beats in ecstasy and· delight or
where two souls ignite .each other; because otherwise
the heart stands still, and the love of souls is dead.
But from whichever ground this ftowc.r breaks forth,
it is in a thousand cases a thousand times . different;
but once it exists, one can destroy any place of germi­
nation and yet it breaks out from still another place,
where one had not suspected it at .all. �t is natural
only to man and ennobles only man, so that he kneels
before it, and beauty alone pours into his trembling,
blissful heart all that is worth while and priz�d in
life . "
·

The fact that from far back we habitually ally_!Q�..�Qn­

_CEE_t_i.9n..9.f .bJ;�µ.ty.. with a work of art seems �o show that
J��- tht:. .�.!:��-��..�!.�QS�.l.!J!g .1¥.i.th. � ��u.er_gf !h�.h�.�!.t
-� �s14�.:which reason, intel lec:t and b eli ef play only a ace-.

ondary role. But can we al toge th er separate the diverse

capabilities of the soul as they relate to any subject? Are
they not somehow deeply anchored within ourselves as
human beings?
Precisely here, concerning the nature of beauty, this
becomes especially apparent. Let us reftect how much of
purely intellectual, even mathematical, work is required to
construct a building, how exactly a painter has to consider
the form and color balance of his picture, how carefully
a composer must think over the structure of his score be­
fore he can transform his idea into reality-not to men­
tion poetry, where the idea, words and thoughts of a
 15

poem, a drama, an epic, are welded together into unity.

Therefore there must be a center within us human .
be-
J!!a;·w��-� Chc;�t· � � d reason join, som .
e insep�rabl e whole­
ness in the depths of our unconscious and subconscious
out of whose measure and value that "wonderful thing"
-beauty-springs forth.
In harmonics we recognize this center in reference to
the arts primarily as tbe value-form of "gr_?.P?..!.�°.ning'�
and we sec in the proportions of acoustical numbers the
prototype for the possibility of harmonica! analysis in the
different arts, where the idea of harmonical proportion
m��.t. ��.turally not be taken in the restricted musical sense
but in its wider significance, as "right measure" . (Durer).
·· - '1:'h';·bond between music "and architectur.c Ts ages old.
We ha�-aircady-me�tioned 'VitrJ!Yl!!!.. (Chapter IV) as
that classic writer on archite��µ,r..e -�h9. g�Y.�l!.�ru�.twort�y.
accounts o( i'lic h�rmonics <!L.�oc.i.�n..t . �n:hitecture, al­
l 'tilo�gK thi�-a.r�i�.e�tµr�l tb�9ry Qf.thc .an�i�11t� appears to
lliim, u he admits, ��- obscure f!.c:!Q.!. He could no longer
�unac"ritand i'ts· technical harmonic background. To judge
from the buildinR �-� � ���e!11e1__1t� g��. e� in �is De 4rcliitec-..
--
!._ura, whic_�. ��Y.C a thoro �.�hly li��mo.�ica . l character, even
though all mention of the tone-values is lacking, it seems
that, as Eichorn (47) supposed, the old inastc� builders 4

��..PJ..QY�g only those proportions whose monochord num-

..h.�ra PJQQuced consonant intervals . .!!1�sc.-�Q.�nded agree·.
.
_!!>��-�-ih� sQul because they rested m�inly on. the triadic
_!:��ios. )c ..Jg Se and . their . multiples. In the course of
my work on the Villard study ( 48) I reached the convic­
tion that through the whole of antiquity there must have
been known a canon of harmonical division which oh�
viously was oTPy"ff1ago���n ��igin. This -���on was based
7
78

on acoustically good auditoriums from nearly all of Eu­

rope; from this it is evident that the measurements of
these halls have a thoroughly harmonica! character. In
spite of this, architects still go on merr�ly building as
though tones had nothing at all to do with the space in
which they arc to resound, as though only. such external
phenomena as echoes, dampening, etc., were important,
and not the essential inner relationship between acoustic
proportions and spatial proportions.
In painting, the proportional motivation is not as evi­
dent as in architecture because, aside from the balance of
the formal masses, both line and color play a. major role.
But still the motivation is there, consciously or uncon­
sciously. Lcpsius ( 52), the Egyptologist, says ·concerning
an old Egyptian mural painting:

"In the grave of Manofer near Saqqara, examples

are to be found of all stages of mural painting and
bas-relief. Many places had only just begun to be
outlined by the chisel, other places not yet incised at
all, but only blocked out in paint. On the wall oppo­
site the entrance is a row of figures still partly retain­
ing the original proportioning lines. One of these
lines always cuts through the whole body from top to
bottom; six other lines cut through horizontally and
are dra\vn more or less visibly through the whole
row of figures. These were first sketched in red, then
painted over in black, whereby the o rig inal mathe­
matical p l an of the proportions becam e b lu rred. "

Lepsius next ·describes how he put together a fig ure from

I
 79

the various relics which had been found, and says that the
001 was taken as the unit of measure for the construction

JLJ!!e form "hid2_���.'?.�4.in _ g�

. Q. �h�. ;.ii.i_.Qra;; {"Ci�t�-gaye.
various proposti�. The individual proportional values
which Lepsius obt�incd, for example 1/2, 4/3, 2/S, 4/5,
1/3, 2/2, S/6, 2/9 r.tr.., as well as the fundamental divi­
sion based on the scnarium1, by themselves may be an
indication of the harmonica! background of this Egyptian
proportioning, which was unknown to Lcpsius. He goes
on: 11Thus we find here !. �a�2n ��i�!i J! }\'.h�!Jy_g���.�ned_
J!y_ the aix given lines''. and concludes with the statement:
"It is of great interest that through this representation
found in a grave of the time of the pyramids we can
ahow proof that..!!.!__!h c_s� .4ivisions, which carried over
from the Egyptian• to the Greeks a�4_R���q�, ..h�.4 �l:. ...

yad\ili'ccn p'Crfectcdiiitfiat earlier.era um� c ). _o[ .. ..

Egyptian civilization"...
= Although it is very widely known that Polykletcs of the
5th ccntur B. C., next to Phidias the rcatcst Greek
sculptor. was t c !_ut .2!. o_f...�.J.�.e�rc_ti�!l ..)Y_<!!"�J t.h�.so:
__

�ailed Ca11��L�b�� ��i:..�e���!��� .��-.-����.!!-b..?�Y,

• .

nothm con DOWD aoout s Canon. One of Poly-

lctca' statues, the famous Doryphoros (Spear-bearer).
was even called simply the Canon from the proportions
of this acultpure, still preserved in several ancient copies.
One day it may be possible to reconstruct Polykletes'
Canon from those copies.
·

Nearly all the ·great painters and architects of the

Renaissance devoted themselves intensively to the study
of proportion in general, and particularly with respect to
the human body. Studies in this regard by Leonardo, a

'Rcating on the numbers 1 to 6.

80

picturizarion of the human form in sq u a r \!s and tr-iaJlglc s

from the Venice edition of \'itrm·ius a nd others, constitute
visual proof of th is The author of the most impo rtant
. ·

work in this respect, howc,·cr. is \ lbr cch t Diir.cr { 53)

: ..

Durcr. in the last years of his lifc,..his most mature period

arti sti call) composed a series of theoretical writings whi c h
',

were published only in part afte r his death, and soon re­
prin ted in new eJitions in Germany anJ France: l) .T.lic
.9raf 1 of ;\/ c:1uttrL'mt�111, a kind of practical geo metry of
plane and space with a ,·cry inte rest i ng attempt at con­
st r u ct i n g the alphabet; 2) Tiu l11.<1nu1io11 011 1/,e Di:f.:11u
of '' City, milit a r � achitccturc in the st yle used at t h a t
· ·

time: and abo,·e all 3) The Fo1tr Books .011 fl1.1111at1 Pro-.
por tio 11 .�, a two-hundred-and-fifty p age \"Olumc, with hun­
dreds of woodcuts which Oiirer himself fashioned most
careiully. �he most imp ort ant of these writiµgs is t he the­
ory about the proportions of the human bod)', and wh o ­

ever takes the trouble to work his way t hrough this book
will be amazed by the energy with which ·Durcr. sou gh t to
master this p roblem His method is <ls simple as it is har­
.

monic:tl-although nowhere do c s he talk. of tona.l num­

bers Dii�e� alwa y s takes the lu11d •ts the primary unit of �
..

measure and constructs bodies whose lengths and. individ-

·ual mcasurcmcnts are se\-·en. eight; ninc. anJ e\·e n ten time s .

that of the he aJs Throu� h rhis measureme nt ·there arise

.

whollr ditlcr�nt rypcs. whose inner pr oportions nc\.'erthe­

lc:ss remain approximatC'ly the same. Hci1J. f<?ot and hanJ
arc proporcioneJ throughout in the minutest dc�ail and at ,

the end of the work we.· l.'\'c.•n tind an attempt at· an a bstrac
­

tion ol rhc human form whidt in a modern construcri,·ist

hook 1.:ould not be carried out hcctcr.
These works of Di.ircr (there arc a great n�1mber of
 81

individual pages on proportions from Diircr's h an d and

much unpublished material is or was in Niirnbcrg) repre­
sent an old tr<.uble spot for the art historian. It is clear
that a schol arship which recognizes no absolute laws and
declares the a rbitrary will of personality as the ultimate
of artistic c reation , cannot have any use for such formal
studi es . A historian even went so far as to write: "\Vho
could deny that the measurement of form restricted the
instinctive powers of his ( Diirer's) nature".:.i But the sub­
lime works of this Inst period of Diirer's life, when he
was engrossecl in studies of proportion-the Hans Imhof
in the Prado, �Iadrid; the Jacob l'vluffcl in the Kaiser
Friedrich Museum, Berlin; the copperplate eng ra \' ing of
Willihald Pirkheimer, and man�' others-shall these be
u ndersto od to be "restriction of t he instincth·e (thus of
the creative) powe rs ? Somet hing there cannot he right.
"

Not, however in Diirer's creations, but in the head

of the above-mentioned art historian. Th is man does not
understand and, like man y of his trade. will not concede
the truth, that for every admirer of art, the au th o rity
alone of great men like Leonardo and Diircr says enough
for the worth, s ignificance and dignity of such investiga­
tion of laws. These names by themselves arc sufficient
guarantee that behind the urge to find laws of a·rtistic crea­
tion, there must still exist something wholly other than an
amusing hobby of g rea t artists grown senile. But this
;,other" is the spirit1tt1I n•jll'l'tiu11 of 1/u l'l't'tllor 11po11 th,·
111·1i.'1it fl"'''''it·,· prouu, not the attempt of artists become
impote nt to regain their potency a rti fi cial l y by detour
through the intellect� ft never occurred to nny of these

1J. Reth in Dir D1·u11c/1r .\Jalrrri (German Painring). lla111llluc/1 ,/,.,.

I\ un1/'1;i1u•uha/1 (Handbook of the Hi1tory of Art).
82

great men to labor o\.·cr such studies in ·order to gi\.·c tllcm­

sclvcs and others "art recipes", cookbooks h.Y w hi ch every
newcomer could brew something for himself. I.a ws ·arc
never directions for the fabrication of a r t .works or for
the attainment of bliss. but are instructions for the llow
and the \Vhat of artistic and philosophi� subject matter.
Moreover, they lead to the understanding of· spiritual
relationships between the material. and th.e ·qiv·crse physi­
ca·I, psychic and spiritual realms. I am convin,ccd that
Diirer, Lconi.lrdo, and all the other great i:nastcrs only
exceptionally shaped their creations in the awareness of
their being "canonical", and generally created .their de­
signs freely. But what the�' found out throµgh' their stud­
ies of proportion in their own works and i1� those of
others gave them the conscious security that there existed
behind all creators a principle of which th�)'. were really
only the servants. And this consciousn.ess in· turn gave
them the inner breadth, the spiritual support� to see their
endeavors not only as a personal. plar with color and
form, but as a necessity in view of the absolute, th<; divine.
Oiirer has expressed himself on this subjcct:in i.lll linmis­
takablc manner, on how he wished to ha\•e "law anJ
rule" applied: "If you ha\'c learned ro mcasL1re and un­
Jerstand tradition, then you will be a hlc to create in
free certainty, and will do justice to c\·crything. Tl�cn
the re is no longer the need to measure l!&tc'1 thi n g. hc:causa
�·our a cq u ire d a rt pnwidcs rou with a go od ere. and the
trained h and is obedient''. ''Free cc r t a i nt y"-o n c can­
not define more beautifully anJ simply �h� 'crcati�·c se­
curity attained through the study of the laws.
I have occupied myself, as did \\�ynl-kcn ( 5+). with
direct h arm on i ca ! &tnah·sis of the human form ( 55 '). and
have found tlrnt tone-� umber proportions: s'cem ·,fr ftl(/0
 83

the most important formal clements which dcscrihc sizes

and junctures. Of course such attempts are at�cndcd h>•
the unnvoiJable Jifficult)' th;�t you have to start f. om a
definite ''normal measure". But analysis through the
harmonica) di\'ision canon is so elastic that one can de\·ise
its specific tonal diagram for every human figure. Quite
contrary to all pt·cvious keys to proportion, one can ar­
rive at an individual, personal diagram of tones an<l num­
bers, e\·en for the indi"idunl figure of a human being.
which nc\·crthclcss m;iy ;tlways be integrated with the gen­
eral harmonica( di\·ision canon.
l\Jore important than this type of proportional anal­
ysis is a principal harmonica) knowledge in regard to the
understanding of modern so-called "abstract painting",
that is, of such pictures that only hint at objects or where
objects are missing altogether. Here the fundamental
elements of painting, namelr1 line and color, are combined
into an artistic synthesis. If we liken drawing to melody,
an� _color to chorJs-an-analogy used-for a long time by
3rt h!�torians and musicologists-and if we know further
by_ h;irmonical investigatiori that here two important
··;nlue-forms (that of the linear-temporal-melodic aml that
..of the surface-spatial-chordal ( S 6) enter into an ab­
stract relation with each other, not weighted down by any
"object", we cannot any longer judge this kind of painting
with misdirected l·ritcria: "\\1hat is this picture supposed
to represent, to mc•rn ?" etc. Rather, we must al l o w such
pictures to affect ·us, to sec whether or not the pla r of
colors. lines and forms is created in an •tutonomous artis­
tic way by the painter in question. This requires, however.
a special feeling for nunncc:s of drawing and color as such,
and this kind of Sl.'nsiti\·ity is still rare in the averngc lay­
man.
 It woulJ be surpris i ng if harmonics had nothing to·say
or noth i ng new to contribute to the art closest to it, music.
\Vith rl!spect to musical th eory , the rcadc� wi:ll perhaps
gain the impression from what has been· said, and .from
what is still to be said, that by way of harmonics certain
things like the ancient number harmonics, the ancient
Greek th eory of enhnrmonics, and their relati.on to Py­
th a go rism , the relationship of music to philosophy, my­
thology and symbolism , etc., will for til e � rst time acquire
a new l ig ht , if not, as in the case of enharmonics, n first
r ecog n i tion altogether. Further. there ar� in the great
works of music curious regularities which up to now ha\.·c
been b ut little investigated. The a nal ysis of Bach ' s .lrl of
the f'ugm� by \Volfgang Graser, who died so young, is
known. Professor K a t hri n e r of Fribourg pointed out to
me a great number of remarkable symmetries \\: hi.ch are
in e\·idence in \.·arious other works of ·Bach. Further,
\Vynckcn ( 54) had alrcad)' disco\lered, a·mong oth er
thi ngs, a strict proportionality of the measure ·pe.rioJs in
the first mo\" e ment of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, from
which we ca n conclude a secret architecture of measure
and value which these masters followed unconsciously
(or consciously?). This is a wholly new fiel� for �usi­
cological research. but what was m entione d in connection
with Diircr's studies of pro p ortion is \·aliJ "here too. All
these d e m on st rations cannot and should not lead to false
\"il!\\'S, as though th e s e masters had prepared their works
\\"ith �·anlsticks, hut rather the rc n: r s c : if th ��, o cc upi ed
thcmsl'l,·cs consciously with proportion . then they applied
th e knowledge thl'y had won th ro ugh ·intellectual rctlcc­
t i on on the laws of thc:ir art. If however the�· applied
those l a w s unconsciously, the n this would b� one more!
 85

proof that certain proportions and sy m m etri e s srand as

constituent clements of Structure behind C\'Cl"Y work of
art. And j f investigations uncm:er these backgrounds, it is
not an idle play with numbers but is p roof of eternal!)'
valid systems which we cannot shrug off, but which we
should stmJ)' ilttcntively anJ admiring!)'·
Of particular interest arc the results of harmonica! in­
vestigations in regard to the fundamentals of musical
theory ( 57). JVhy do we make music by means of th&!
. ..�yhol.e tone, that is,. ;1 definite frequency ratio of 9/8 or
HU.9 ?_ \Vh}' not by m e ans of a somewhat hargcr or
__

smaller interval? How shall we explain the meaning of

major and minor as a basic harmonic polarity making its
appearance in the music of the last fe\\" centuries? \Vhcncc
aml for what reason Jid the diatonic scale: (the scale
c d c f g a b or d e f# g a b c#-alw a ys with three
whole steps, one ha) f ste p , three whole steps, hence to­
gether seven tone steps) &trise as a mea sure for all other
scales? \Vha t <foes the concept of the c a d e nce mean,
which as n perpetually moving force has determined the
musical ('ourse from the time of Bach to the pre s ent ? (A
caJl' nce in C major, for example, rests on the bass tones
c- f-g-c. with the corre sponding harmonics: C ma jor- F
ma jo r (or minor )--G m:ajor-C major). \\'hl.·ncc and
for whar reason did t he phenomenon (,f cou nte rpoi n t
arise? I low :ar1.· the finel y <liffercntiatl..' d 1 in ..: a r imcn·al
steps uf oricnt&al mus i<: fitted into tu11:tlity? Tiu:SL' :and
othL·r ljucsrions arc :rnswcn.'d hy harnh111ics for the first.
tim e . not L'Sthctic:11ly ( h.rhc a nc ient masras did ir. h1.·111.:c
it is 1-tood") nor as a historical Je\·dopm\..'nt ("it arose
t hat way in the co ur se of time"), but i11 an ohjl.'..:tin� way
th ro u �h th e :ana l ys is of harmonit.· tonal l:i\\' itsdi. whidl
86

has its foundation in nature (the o v er tone series, the par­

tial-tone coordinates ) and at the same time in the soul
{tone sensation ) and is common to all peopl es and races.
(SS) The uni\'ersalit\'. of this harmonical tonal law nat-.
urallr <locs not excluuc the fact that different peoples
anLI cultures make selections from this l a \\' ·appropriate to.
.

their needs. Thus for example .t�1c ancient. Greeks cher­

ished primarily the linear dimension, developing this. to.
the fi ne st enharmonic ramifications, by using uiffcrentiated.
pitches for the same tones, d, e fl at , c, a, a Oat, b·ftat, (at
l ..'I c).
while \\'e of tod:l\' arc content w"ith the tem­
·
=

pered tweh-e-tone.. scalc� But we use harmony in. an abun­

dance un kno wn to the ancients. The Orientals and the
primiti\'e peoples arc far superior ..to. us in. reg� rd to.
rhythmic sensitivity, and only by the detour of jazz \�as a
greater enrichment of rhythm impressed upon modern
musi c . H armonically speaking , all these "historical" vari­
a nts may be brought under the common denQQ'lina"tor of
th t! harmonic tone system, and mil)' thus be proved to be.
primordial and unconsciously latent in the soul-which is
the d e cis i\ · c point. .
Consequently, it may also be possible to create a broad
theory of musical laws whic h would ii1clude t.he previous
courses in harm on y , counterpoint and rhythm,_ to he in­
t rm l u c c d at some later time into the conscrva
. torics, re­
pla<:ing the theoretic studies now prevailing .
.-\nyone fa m il iar with the present instruction in theory
knows what ails it, despite the best efforts on the part of
th� t e a c h e r : knows the arbitnrincss of the fundamental
propositions. the d r rness of the material and, as· a result.
the indiffcn·ncc of most of the pupils. Into th"is stale at­
mosphere harmonics could b ring a breath of fresh air.
 87

With the monochorJ as the basic instrument, the music

students would learn to train their cars to a sensitivity
heretofore unknown. The questions posed above would be
answered by the tonal laws derived from the numerical
proportions of the monochord. The individual forms of
the harmonical diagrams would develop in these students
a totally new psychic faculty: "udi1io11 'l:isuetlc, and soon
the simplest tonal number correspondences in the various
spheres of science and intellectual life would show them
the great backgrounds of· their musical vocation, and
awaken their wonder and awe before the divine. Even
those people with rudimentary education have in my ex­
perience no difficulty in understanding this, and it is espe­
cially the unspoiled who can be aroused to enthusiasm. A
·Utopia? Certainly not.
Most directors of mu;);� schools make the mistake of
underestimating the intellectual receptivity of their stu­
dents. Naturally the introduction of harmonical studies
into a music school could only have a meaning if it were a
compulsory course. Indeed, in a certain sense it would have
to be a major department, insofar as it would guide the
theoretical and general education of the developing musi­
cian, thereby endowing the student with a high responsi­
bility, even the highest, with which he could occupy him­
self as a musician. Truly a responsibility, not for mere
"music ·making11-strumming, blowing and fiddling­
.
but for music itself and the laws inherent in tones, which
alone make music possible. For the future development of
the whole musical profession, which today is geared to the
highest possible technical polish, a harmonica! counter­
balance seems to me indispensable. How of ten one goes
home wholly dissatisfied with performances of the most
88

beautiful programs by the best known artists, only because

one feels that there was only empty tecl1nical play without
.any spiritual content; eveq thing clicked superbly, .all the
J!..Otes were right, all dynamics were correct, and yet eve_ry.:'
thing was false, artificial. This is due in no. small measure
to the rcluct1tnce, so widespread in musical circl_es today,
to show one's feelings. 1"'he suspicion seems· justified that
there is no deep feeling; no genuine musicality, in the first
place. Instead, technical skill and sophisticated perform­
ance make virtue out of a want. This combination of am­
bition and technique negates, sometimes even ridicules,
that which one docs not possess oneself. Naturally, this
must not be taken as an apology for amatc;uri.sh emotional
exuberance, but should draw attention to a particularly
sore spot in the entire profession of musical performance
today, especially in connection with the interpr.ctation of
the classics and the romantics, which has long since been
conspicuous to every real friend of music. At this level
nothing can be changed. The change must come from be­
low the surface, through education. Herc a new spirit
could develop and be made a reality, and here· harmonics
could play its part in pl a nting such a new spi. rit into the
souls of the pupils.
As f ar as modern music is concerned, har·monics takes
the standpoint that e\'ery creative person sho.uld be given
the opportunity to hear his works toda� regardless of
'·

whether he t a k e s as a model Bach. Beethoven. or some of

the ultra-modern composers. In or:ie h u n dr ed or perhaps
.

five hu n d re d years today's production will be so near that

,

of I 700 or 1800 that no one will care if it was "modern",

whether it struggled with problems or was in any wa�· "in­
te re st i n g \ but solely a n d only whether it then speaks to
'
 89

the souls of men, \\.·hether it aros e from that dcl.'p wdl of

c rcati \ it y hr which all earnest production is marked. But
•

this is also the criterion for the p roducti on of our day.

People who applaud inJiscriminatcl}' cn:ryching that is
now being ser ved in the concert halls bec11usc it is ''mod­
ern", show the same lack of intel ligen ce lack of crititJUC,
.

and same inertia of the soul as those w ho stic k to not h i ng

but the classics and wha t is time-tcstc<l. Since the wider
public for the most p art ha s no p oint of view and would
sometimes like to be i n st ructed critics should esrahlish the
,

standards. But that is :.i ch apter in itself. anJ ni l critics

able to uphold stan<lnrds coul<l sing a song about what
would happen if they e\·er t ri e d to sp e11 k their minds.
It may be approp riate here to mention my ha.rmoni­
cal study.JJ. i.: Form da Gt'ig,·, nus dt:m Gi·J,:/z da To111·
i!.4.�:111e1 { Th e Shape of the V iol in Dcri,·cd from Tonal
]:,��\'}� (59) Soon after the development of this mi ra c u ­

ious instrument, the a ttemp t w as made again and again

to construct the peculiar form of the body of the violin
(its resonant space) from one or another purel}' mathe­
matical law. Certainh- a wide Jifference exists be tw e en a
..cheap facto a=) \'ioliri ;md a Stradivarius or a Gunrnerius,
•

but it is also evi<lent that these famous \o'iolin-makcrs

woulJ h a\ e li\·cd in \•ain, •rnd co u ld not ha vc e nd owed
·

their masterworks wit h such beauty of tonl'.. if the shape

of the ,·iolin hnd not suddenl y appeared in the middle
.-�.f tl�c..l�th �e�t_ ury as though fa ll ing from a clear sky.
The s hap e of the violin is thus fundamental to its exist­
ence, and it is wort�whi.lc to in \ cst igntc this enigma. The
'

solution was found in_ .4:1_ spccifil' harmonica! subdi\·ision of

.

-�he miJJlc axis, as well as in a six-fold •lpplic a tion of th e

"partial-tone curve", which is a graphic exp res s ion of all
9ll

tones, projected into one oct•ive. For the first time in the .

history of musical instruments the · fo rm 'of the vio·lin was

thereby demonstr:n·.·d to be an· exact exp�ession of to�al
law itself, and its charncteristic sh�pe thus cxplain�d-.
 VIII

TJu /111m a nitin ; matliruwtir• · G rstull 111at'1rmlllia; 'Word, Ian·

l�"I'• 1or1ry; altrdasis of tlu ..,.·or,/; of till' /1111911a9r; of ;ort1·y;
J. B11rcH1ar1lt,· lo11e auJ rl1yt/1 111; J>l1ilu1oj>h)'; Stl101r11/1aurr; Ill}'·
tltolo,y, 11111'10/i�m ,· t..:o contrlts of GoJ.

In concluding our ex ploration of the workshop on

h a rmonics with a short surVC)' of the results and p robl ems
of harmonics in the arts and the humanities, we. see that
mathematics ( 60) occupies a foremost position, not with
-respect to importance, hut rather as the logical basis of
··all harmon.ic forms. One can Ji,·ide the mathematical­
harmonic a l p roble ms and theorems i nto three categories:
a) the historical ones, b) those which arc placed in a new

light by harmonics· and c) those which result from har­

monics as · altoge the r new m a them atical problems. His­
torically speaking, harmonics makes it p oss ible to consider
.
92

all ancient number symbolism (astral symbolism; the

acoustical basis of G reek arithmetic an<l geometry; cer­
t a i n sp he r e s of Gnosticism; the so-called superstitions of
number 1 etc.) from a unified point of \"iew·. 1\ lany mathe­
matical theorems anJ problems (thc . whole of the propor­
tion theory, especially harmonic proporti·on, as the foun­
Jation of the new projccti\•c gcomctr)'; the golden section
as a musical phenomenon of third s anJ sixths; the various
concepts of infinit>'; the ''mct:lphysical overlay" ( 61) of
m o nochor d division as the real backgroun�J of the deriva­
ti\'e quotient, etc.) acquire through ·harmonic am1lysis
a new feature. a psychological founJation that adds to
the logical one. Again, other mathematical problems arise
as wholly new propositions, such as the im·csrigation of
the group-theoretical content of phme and spatial tone
coordinates, a series of new mathematical curves (tone
curves), whose formulae still ha\·e to b� established, and
so on. But it seems to me that the most essential and im­
portant task of future harmonic-matheJllatical investiga­
tion is the possibility of a Gestalt mathematics on �he
basis of the configuration of tone and number. This con­
cept has been postulated h>• H. Friedmann ( 62) and can
be tn1ccll explic itly nnJ implicitly through the whole of
nwdc:rn Gestalt th e o r >'· Since the Gestalt not onl)' has a
l o� i c;1 l form. bur also a ps yc hic and spiritual h;tckground,
it is precisely here, through r hc harmonica! approach to
tone nu111hcrs. tl1ar the un ii1 tu: possibility is found of
creating G esta l r mathcmatit.·s rhrou�h the· forms of n11-
di1io11 �·i.•udlt·. B e c ause here, within the .forms of the tone
n umb e rs, logic a l am.I psychic values arc unit ed /1 pl"iori in
an exact way. If ,, gifted mathcmatic _ ian · inte rest e d him-
 C)J

self in these thin gs , I am con vincc J that surp r i si ng- results

wou ld come about \'Cl")' soon . "I-Iarmonicallr audi b le
imagcs"-as we call the c.Jiagnrms of 1mdilio11 'l'irnc/fr­
are fundamentally imp or t;i nt with respect to the mathe­
matical comprehe nsi on of organi c forms (sec aho,·c, p.
52): hut to intl'�ratc the se audible images into a math e­
matical system \\'ould req uire a new branch of thi s science,
n G estalt mathematics, w h ich then of courSl' would have
ttJdesign a new sy mb olic language of its own, freed of
tone sign atures an d cr e ating its own symbols and formu­
lae.
In wo rd and in lan l{uagc, hcuing and thinking unite in
a bond resulting in what we call cognition , whose fi n est
express i ons arc the works of philosophers and poets.
Herc, after the precedent of Herder ( 63) and H u mbold t
( 64), ha rmoni cs again poses the qu esti on concerning the
categorical ordering of word and language in th e! spi rit­
ual communication of man with man. It answers this
question through its recognition of the universal signifi­
cance of the acou stic and the audib le with the 11kroa1ic.
If it is shown-and harmonica! investigation since the
earliest times is a continuous proof of it-that the audi­
b le , acoustical factor. \rith its pe c u lia r laws and princi pl e s ,
regulates the forms of nature as well as o f the soul. then
we ha\'C here an explan ati o n for the not sclf-<.Tidt.·nt fact
th at we human beings communil:atc b�· llll'ans of word and
SJW<.'ch, and not hy optic a l . haptical. or othe r llll'ans-as
c\·cn the blind am) dl·af arc capable uf doin�-a11d that
thus the acoustit.·al is also the medium of expression of our
spirit and our reason.
The 11ht}11Jis of speech appears in lktails of lanj.!uagc.
The (;.-eeks usl·d "101:-tos" as rhc o\·cr·:dl l'onn· pt (or word.
spce!ch, rcsponsihilitv anJ rea so n. The designation ''pc1·­
son '', ''personal", a � a mark of recogni t i o n of the unique
human individual, comes from the I .at i n p1·rrn1111r1· ( t o
sounJ through, to call, to p ro cl a i m ) ; thc )r<>rd ft1/11111
( f a te or destiny) com es from f1u (Ji,:inc saying, l'Olll·
m a nJ , dogma, right) anJ from the G1'.cck -.;aw. ';171µ.l (say,
speak out) . Not1n:1· (notes) means to dcsignatl.; to write,
to sound. In German there is the w orJ f 'c•n11111fI (r.cason,
intelligence) from i·,•r111·h111c•u, to hear : f"cor1111lt.:ur11111!/
(responsibility) from 'l.'c'rt111J-.;:or/1•11, to answe r for: f/t'·
h ur,·11 (to belong) from g,•.hiirc�u, ·to listen to: /lc-rn/
(\.·ocation, c a llin g)from lwruft:11, to h e cal le d ; 1·111-
·

s p rc d101 (to cor res p on d ) from e1ll·.' Prt• du 11, c o -rcspoall L

and many others. One s ho u l d take these. examples, which

might easily be multiplied, not simpl r ns an interesting
enumeration of linguistic "acoustica", ·but as c\•ide�ce of
the basically &luditory mood of some of our most hn po r ­

tant concepts.
The ancients knew more of the relation of. harmonics
to s p eech and poctr} than \\"C do tod ay. F1;om what wns
quoted of H ommel in Chaptl·r Il I. it ;l.ppcars that the
ancient g-rammarians inquired into tl1
. c "inclination and
dcdination of tones and madl· thorongli rn\·cstigations of
''

the numcrir-harmonical h:ickg-rounds of n:rsc rh yth m .

Furthermore. in the hiJ,thly interestirij.{ book, /J,· .l f11Jit't1

( 65). h�· the c:hurc:h fathl·r Saint :\\1gusti1u·. arl' ro hl·
found l'Xtraordinarily im·oh-cd i1111uirics i nto thl· tOlll'·
number backgrounds of Grcl·k , c r s c mdrics. which 1111
·

practically one-thirJ of th e entire \\ o rk Jacoh B urck·

" .

hardt, in his lli.�1ory of G r1·,·k Cu/1111"'' ( 66), says of

ancient Greek tragedy:
 95

"As regards the pl otting of the! action, in the later

trngcJics one nrn�· discover s ecrets which one could
not sec or observe in the thea t re itself, yet which
must have had their s ignifi ca nce . Certain tragedies
of Sop hocl es am) Eu r i pide s are constructcJ quanti·
tati vcly according to the number of verses in the di.:·
,

log, in such a manner th;lt the main scen e is in the

middle, tO\nt rJs whic:h the other scenes c\·cnl\'
ascen d or from which they d es cen d, so that the • }
come together symmctrkally in the center, like fig.
ures grouped in a pediment. No human e)'e or ear
co ul ll h:wc seen or hcarJ that, and yet it is pro�·ed;
these ar� th i ngs which so far have not been ex­
pl;lined, hut w hich show us the supreme artistic
power of the poets."

Here one must recal l the basic Pythagorean diagram,

the "L;unbJoma" (sec Chapter III) which was d r a wn
in the for111 of a Greek L (lambda= A) and which as
an es ote ric symbol could well have been know n to those
great poets. Thus the secrets of the S)'mmetry of the
tragedies arc rc\•calcd llS the exilct cxprcssion of Prthag·
orcan 11111/i1itm t·imc'//,·, and thus of harmonical ori gin .
The ancients kn1..'\\' that the la ws of tone and of r hy th m
were one and the s:lllll': wc of toJay c:an pron: it easily
lw 11\L':tns of the siren (which for once can serve purely
a� i\ rcs1..·an:h instrum�nt of ph�·sics). .'\ny rhythm.
through incr"'ilsing its fn!Ljt1cncics. may be transformed
into a tone or ;111 in t1: 1Tal of two and m ore tones. If n
:
string ,·ihr:atl·s so sl m, ly that one rnn sec its regular to·
and-fro mo\·cn11.:11ts and count them ;1s a rhythm per
$econd. one can hear perhaps a buzzing noi s e, but not yet
96

a tone. Onl y when the pulse is a ccele r ated do our cars

hear tones. The same holds true for diff crent rhythms
per time unit. From th i s knowledge the rh}•thmical verse
me a sure s in poetry and drama seen to be not onl y
arc

mere additions to the language, but as :parallel forms of

worJ c :- c :i tion horn of the auditory laws of lang u age.
Thus rhythm heightens spee ch in poe try and drama not
merely by the addition of a str nng � new c leme nt ; when
rhythmical speech approaches musical tone, our spiritual
powers become doubly root c J in that mysteri ous realm
of sounding shapes which form and regulate the world at
its core. Herc in poetr y the 11kr<Jtisis of the word attains
its hig hest fulfillment, and I person al ly am of the opinion
that it is precisely the 11kro1i1k timbre, not the thought or
linguistic expre ss i on alone, that gives poetry its loftiness.
For example, a verse by Holderlin:

".Ifs wic d11 Ruhe1ag, so isl dt:s Jahrcs End;e,

wit- ei11er Fragc Ton, dau dieser sich ••:ollende ..."

(So likt.' dt1y of rot, is Jim.\'' )'t:ar 1ha11s l!114iug1

''

it's like a q11c.Hio11's Jom:, 1h,11 longs for iu rnmplc-

1io11 . • . )

can well be analyzed. explained anJ intc rpri: tcd in

thought, rhythm and speech But the result o.f this n nal � sis
. ·

will alwitys he pitifull�· m e ager as compareJ with the

won dc rf ul im p ress ion which here especially point s to a
dci:p s�·nthcsis of 11kroti1ic ori g in , to the phicc in our soul
where the sound of the world co nt r a cts in a mysterious
focus.
 97

\Vhat harmonics has to offer to philosophr or to moJ­

ern thought depends most closely upon the position as­
signi;d to harmonics in today ' s view of the world. The
attempt will be mad e in the next chapter to Jc.fine this
position to ·some ex tent . To my know le Jgc , the possibil­
ity of re-establishing harmonics as a science has been fore­
seen by only one of the great modern philos oph e rs ,
Schopenhauer. In the thi rd book of h is main work, Tile
Jf"or/ti ilS IYill 1111d ltlrt1, 1 after profound meditation on
the essence of music, he says: " One could as well call the
world embodied music as embodied will ", and he con­
cludes that "the world of appearance or n a tu re, anJ mu­
sic,, are "two different expressions of the s•unc thing":.!.
He sums up towards the end as follows:

"In presenting these views of music I h ave tried

to make dear that the}' express, with the greatc::st
assurance and truth, in a v ery universal language,
th.rough a unique substance, namely, tones, the inner
being of the world, which we think of through the
concept of will. Further, it is my o pinio n that philos­
ophy is nothing but a complete re pe tition and expres­
sion of the essence of the world in ,·err general
terms. Only in this i-s a sufficient and ap p l i cab le sur­
vey of such an essence possib l e . \Yhocn:r has fol­
low ed me i n mr way of t hinki ng will not find it para­
doxical that if we surccclkd in an entirely cx:11:t and
complete explanation of music, namely , to repeat in
language what music says, we would have a suffil·icnt

1 ln�el Edi1i11n, \'ul. I, p. 3Sl.

1 Ibid. p. UZ.
 explanation of the world. This woul.d be -true philos­
ophy, and we could change a quo�e ..from Leibnitz
which is correct on a lower rung, i.n the sense of our
higher idea of music. Leibnitz said::• '�1qsic is a mys­
terious mathematical exercise of the . soul'. But . I
say, music is a my sterious me.taphysic�l
.
.e. li:ercise of
the uncol1sciously philosophizing $.pi.rit.11.•

The verb uirc (to know) m�ans to h4VC arrived .at ab­
stract concepts. As in the often confirmed. truth of the
quote from Leibnitz, music. aside from. its esthetic and
inner importance, can be seen empir�cally as. the means
ro perceive, immediately and ;,, co11rrc.10, oumbers and
.number relations which we recognize. less spontaneously
by conceptual means. Through ·the com�ination ·of these
two different anu ) et correct idea$ abo\1t music, we can
a rrive at the possibility of a philosoph)• of numbers, like
that of Pythagoras or of the Chinese l Ching, and thus
interpret the saying of Pythagoras· quoted by Sextus
Empiricus (Adv. �lath. L, VII): T� ap1.0µ.� St Tel 1Tavr'
E1TEot.KEV which means, through number all is assimilated.11
Here one must not take music in its u·sual sense but in its
widest meaning, as did Schopenhauer.
Other results of investigation which ·are historically
important may be pointed out here. All earl)· mythologies,

i Musica ei;t exercirium arithmeticae occuhum ncscicnri•. lie. numerarc animi.

·

{ l.cihnitiiepi11tolac, collection Kortholci, C'll· l H.)

'�fusica e�t exccrcitium metaphr�iceli occulmm ne�cientill sc philo!iophari
animi. See p. 172 of the Su1,pleme11t to Edward l>annrcuther'li tram1lation
of \\'a�11c:r'11 c:��ar, Bntl104lt11, London USO. The Supplement i11 titled On
tlu .\ f rlll }l1ysics of ;\I usic, from A nhur Schopcnhaucr'ir Dit IY tit al1 Willt
1111.J I.la, Vol. I, 52 (181&)-Tr.
0 Inst:! Edition, Vol. I, pp. 3SS-3S6.
 99

religi ons , an d wis dom t ea c hings arc iull ul "ima�c-con­

.
ccpts". (67) A ttempt s ·were made lirsr ( C r cu 1. c r ) to
explain and inte rpret the1n &ls forms of a psychit.· artituJc.
later purclr by way of h istorical c\.·olution on the hasis
of compar:ati\'c studies of re li gi on and m y th . and llnall�'
in· terms of psychi c :trchet}'pcs (modern <lepth p sr chol ­

og�').
:\nyonc who has read not only \\'O rks on harmonics
but has .also explored the Jiagrn ms of the tone numbers
in all thdr \ ar i ations will often be astounded at how pre­
·

cise· the conceptual im •tgc s of these diagrams arc when

related to the deepest symbols of re ligio n and mythologr.
If we consider further that all these diagrnm s arc not
mere intellectual number structures, but geometric anJ
arithmetical images which s ugg es t c..:rrain natural laws
( o vertone series) as well as certain protutrpical forms
of the soul (tone sensations) and ii \\'C consider that
I

wh11t these harmonica! diagram s cxpn.:ss is founded on

double e\1idencc in nature outside us and in the s o ul
within u s-then thdr message acquires existential weight,
so far as one c;rn s pe ak of concrete criteria at all.
For instance. we encounter h ere rhc twu ,(ilforcnt ideas
of God prc\·alcnt in all religions: first. that of the God­
head as rhc unknown (iod, rhe :'\'in-;tna of the Buddhists.
the Ensoph of the C;1hala. th e Brahman of till' lmlians.
the groumllcssnL'S$ of the m�·srics. l'ti.'.-in harmonica!
symbol ism the sign 0 0 (sec Table 11 ) ; and second, the
perso n a l iJca of Cod the Father, the De1niur�c. the Jo­
hanninc r .o�os. tlu.· ( )nc, crc.-in ha rn111nical s y m bo lism
the si1:tn I I (sec Tab le 11). Enry valu.: of existence in
the harmonica! system is "horn'' from a dual impulse
springing out of unit�-. but is related hack ( rc·-ligio, to
.
100

hinJ fa s t ) , by vi r t ue of the direction o.f equal to ne v alue s ,

not to I.: I, but to 0/0. Th is means nothing else than tha t

the world and all in it, b eg un by an act of creation ( l /1}

h11s d c \'c loped further (evolution), but ahr;1�·s under
the gre;\t aspect of the emanation of all cxistcnl'c: from the
(iodhc;u.J. the universal spirit, o: liowl'\'Cr one may inter­
pret the symbol o .. ·o according to his own fights. At the
beginning of each harmonirnl dev elop m ent we always
h;1n: a pure world of interpenetrating �najQr ;rnd min�r
chords. w ith six '' guard sm en to th e right and· to the left";
onl y with the se ...·enth ratio. precisely with. the dominant
sc\'cnth chord in music, Joes modula tion hcRin ; "that is,
the world of consonance ceases, anJ dissomuu:c, ·with its
ch a ra c te ris tic thrust of d c ,· c lopmc nt , b egi ns . The cor­
respondence with the various ideas of Paradise. with the
Bi blic a l six days of creat i o n , 1rnd so forth. is· ob ...·ious
here. Through all harmonic systems runs th e so-called
., g cm erat ing tonal line", that is, the chain of the con­
st a ntly self-realizing unity ( 1/1. 2/2, 3/3 . . .) of the
creati\·e impulse-w e sec herein the prototype of all
Hcdccmer images, of the perennial personification of the
crcatil·e i d ea (0/0 . . . J .'J, 2/2, 3<3 . . . } mani­
fest ed in the total structure of space and tim e. without
which rhc exisrcnl'c:-valuci; could not endure.
These arc only a few e xam pl es of harmonica! sym�ol­
ism. which show how medi ta t i on on harmonica! d i n �ra ms
( 68) leads co m a tters of cent ral significance. E a�h person
may make out for himself his constitutive .or r e�ula t i \' e
interpretation (in Kant's sen se ) . It is for from being th e
business of h a r monics to mc:ddlc in mattc:rs of faith. to
plead for a d ogma- free rt'/igio, or e\·cn tu offer a religion
to confirmed materialists anJ meJicine men who b elie\•c
 101

in n othi n g but sober factuality. Bcrond dispute, howl!\'er,

is the firm ps y ch<' -phy s i c 11 l rooting of all harmonic dia­
grams and their "imagc-conccµta". From here on we mny
for the first time explain adcquatcl}' why such rcmarkahle
conceptions as the two fundame n ta lly different represen­
tations of God,· the dream of Paradise, the creation in
six da)'S, the Redeemer idea, and many others; could
spring up at all in the soul of man in all times and cul tures .
All these archetypal harmonii: "image-corn:cµts", to which
we add the theorem of the Trinity, of reincarnation, of
the existence of a world of darkness and light al rea d y
present in the lap of God ( sec Chapter XIV), arc of
course shown in extreme abstraction in the harmonic dia­
grams (in number, ton e and geometrical form), and for
that very reason they are of the utmost precision. They
express the =�:istence of definite basic \':tlue-forms lying
unconscious in the ''outside world"; they show i n a certai n
sense a structure common both to nature and to the soul.
These harmonica! " im a ge-concepts" tell of those forms,
those prototypes whose cctypi cal 0 re aliz ation we may
then investigate, unlrnmp<·rcd by the ballast of precon­
ceived systems and opin i ons . They nrny be found in the
most "·nried e p och s and peoples, nnd ma�· be related to
the models of sp i r i tual life common to all men.
• Realiacd, made \'i11iblc.
 IX

T Ju p os i1iu 11 of l111rmu11io i11 ro11/r111Joraq !l1oup/,t; E. Cauin-1·,

mytltical lhuu1l11; mo,/rn1 1111lur11/istir ll1oup/11,· c:. G. Jl1111,· lltr
co/luti{lt u1uo11sdous; 1/u Jusiti1>11 of h11nn011its " ) 1Rylllic11I,·

1M11lti111; b) tlu rul/Nti'f.•1• 11111"1111scfou1 1111,/ tlt.r 11rd11•fJ"l•'I ,' Jtrulo·

/}'/It" 01111 anlll"IJ'PI': d 1110,lrr11 scil'l1tijr thid'i1111.- · ·

.-\fter these:: expeditions through the problems an<l the·

results of harmonica! research. both reader ;rnd author
may ask rhc tJucsrion: \\"lil·rc docs h armonic s re al ly be­
long in our conrcmpornrr world, &llld how is it to be
classified in the system of todar's science?
The s i m pl est way to t.•xrril'atc on ese l f from rhc embar­
ra s s m ent created hy such a lJ U C s tiun (and I s peak from
experience) is to explain that har mo n i c s fS ·a scil.'llCC and a
way of thinking in itsd f: it carries its just.ification wi t hi n
itself. and how other disciplines relate to it will become
apparent in due rime.
 103

liut this docs not get to the heart of the question, which
should rcall)' he: In what wa�· is harmonica! t h in k ing
distinguished from modern scientific thinking, and where
arc their points of co ntact ?
I will try to answer this ques tion hr r elat ing two pres­
ent Jay app roaches which can at lcilst suggest what the
differences arc.
The p hilosophe r Ernst Cassirer ( 69) opp oses the
concept of m)•thical thinking to modern scienti fi c thinking.
He characterizes the former as a mode of thinking which
establishes c orres p ondences. \\'ithin which individual an al ­
ogies are related to one another in an external, often ar­
bitrary, way. The most primitive form is totemism. The
tribe of the Zunis, for example, lrns a scptuarchy, a divi­
sion into seven, of their whole t houg ht arid way of life.
"The Zuni \•illage is d i\·id ed into se\.·cr. :-cgions which
corresp ond to the se\•en Jin:ctions of space: to the north.
th e west, the south, the cast, the u ppe r and the nether
worlds, and finally the center of the world. Not only each
particular clan of the tribe but also eve ry creature,
whether it has a soul or not. ever�·thing. every h appening,
ever)' clement and en:ry parti<:ular period of time, be­
longs to one of these sc\·cn regions.... Every cnvir on­
mc.:nt possesses its own spccilil· c ol or and number, e tc ."
(70) Further. Cassircr says that in principle. as tro logica l
thinking is not "different''. nor is the realm of my th dif­
ferent, which always hitrhcs on to a ·" tangi b le part" of
the \\"orlC:I, such as the world egg of the Orp hi cs . the world
ash tree of the pri miti vt: Germanic tribes. etc., and t he n
links corrcsp ond <: � cc to currcsponJcncc in a chain whereby
causality (cause and ctfoc t ) p l a y s m erely an external
role of mutual relati o ns hip . The m yt hic al world idea,
 11y1 Ca,tirer, i• ttnlk, tpatially ori�prcd, and confc·
qu�ntly prte,lntincJ to turn into ri"iJ imii"o uuJ •ymholt •

. Thr world pkture o( n u t u u l 1dcn'c i1 wf}olly difJcr4'nt,

which Ca11ircr clluractc:riu• a• follmu: '1Tf10 form of
•dcnti(ic c"plunation of nature, firmly ettR.hlitb�tl �inct
tJ1c Rcnuiuance, ainr� li'tllltco nnJ K�pkr, &.on•itt• euen·
tially in rhia-tlrnt ull exiat�m"'e rr10Jve1 into a bccomir""
a tprt<·c·tirnc rellltiontltip, unJ i1 "rounded in "the: hw• of
thcte rcl1ttiun•fiiµ1". ( 7 J) Further: "Jn the tnitthcmuticd
theory o( natural pa·o("CU('•• which oprc-11c1 that thouKht
n10at dcnrly amt complctdy, every content and every
�vent rnu•t, to make the c:xplanlltion at all umleut:tnd­
ablc:, firtt be trandormcJ into a cornplc" o( quanritic:a
which arc to be conaiJercJ in 6(cnenal 111 dwngin" from
· nionicnt to moment. The aim o( the theory consitta then
in lint.Jing out ho w alt thc11e change1piutually act upon aml
-conJition one another (72), hut thit implies at the same.
time t hat our modern 1cicntific way of thinking, in under•
1t a n d in g anything that cxisu, must relate it first to cle·
mcntary chanl(CI ant.I, 10 to 1pcak, br�ak it <lown into
these. The form o( the whole, at it p rdcn t1 it1di to the
lenses or to pure pcrC'cption, diaappeau: in it1 place,
thouafit 1ctt up a spe cial rule o( becoming". ( 73) An<l
now Cauircr places moJcrn thinking against attrology,
which is onr type of mythiol thought: ''For moc.ltrn
science, the unity which it acc:ks is the un i t )! of natural Jaw
as a p u rely functional one; for astrology it is the unity of
a permanent and integrated stability, of a s t r uctu re of
the univcr.e; ( 74) The logi,:al thinking of tcicnce doe1
not find 1uch a rdati�n•hip in the place where myth aJtowt
elements to correspond with each other, anJ. to bt or·
dercd aft.er a certain achcmc. M ode rn 1cience dttcrmine1
 10.S

how, aumJi111 to 1 &(t1eral rule, cut:ain choinf&C! ol one

clcmcnr inftucnc� tht 0th.er ... ( 7 S)
We 1hould rake •pedal note of thi1 lut acnr�nce. "'h"r
C:inirer clia.uifice u tei�ntilic thinkina of 'OLlrte uppliea
not orafy ro natur�I uicnce but. mu1111iJ m1111mdl1, to rhc
cnciro rhou"ht of uur rime. i11dudir1a vtiilot<Jphy ( u a
.cit:n<'c), art anJ thcololl)', 1ince cauu).fourtion11J d1ou�fit
ptay1 rhc: main rnlt in rhttc pr(lvincta too.
Before 1tatinj the: po1i1ion of hurrnonica conccmin"
C ilUi rer'1 1ta rcmcnt1, we may mention quit• another
phenomenon, nnmcly, th&: 1n-c<1llcJ .. 1trcherypes11 o( Junit'•
depth ptycholn.cy. litre, th1tnk1 to du: dc:<lr nnJ concin
cxprtuiont of C. Ci. Jung. we un be brief. In the hook
on wlrich he coll<tborated with R. Wilhelm, Tltc Surl'I
<1/ lhe Go/J�n Flower• ( 76) h� write•: " . ju at au tht
, •

human boJy 1how1 a common anatomy over and above all

racial diffcrcnco, 10 too doet the p;yche po11n1 a <"Om•
mon 1ub1tratum, beyond all cul t u re :ind diffcrcnc-e tJJ
comdou1nc11. J have called the latter the co11cctive un·
conadou1. Thi• uncon1<"iou1 psyche, common to all man­
kind, Joe1 not con•i1t only of contents capahlc of bccom.
ing contciou1, but of latent disposition• toward certa in
identical reactions". Thi1 cxplain1 the 0analogy, even the
identity, of myth-motive• and in general the pouihility of
human communication". At the cote of thctc latent di1-
position1 toward i<lcntic11I rcactioit1 l ie the archct}'pca,
psychic form1 and image: conccptt which then enable
u1 to interpret and understand puriculat mytholofitict,
psychic contl�urations, etc.
'Tranolated •nd ••plaiotd by Jlicltud WllhellJI, wld1 • Europun t.om•
mut.,y � C'. G. Jun� Trah•l•1wd Int.oil F-n•ll•h hy c;.,,. 1'. lhyt1H. N••
y .. , ... Harc:qurt Brace II C'o., lfJI. Pm1rrh itnJHoti,,,.. Thi• p•,••IJ' vatlu
•lisbrl1 fr- th•t Jino by Kay""r-Tt.
106

:\s for as the relation of harmonics to mythical thinking

is.concerned. ic would Sl'Clll at first·that there are close
connections. [n harmonics ,,·:.; arc also concerned with
corresp on d enc es : e\•cry harmonic \.':lluc-form. is. so to
speak. the cond enser-l ens for a whole· se rie � . of corre­
sponde n ces . which outside of the lens ha\'c l.ittlc or noth­
ing to Jo with one another. But it is preciscl r the im age of
the lens which en ables us to grasp the b a sic difference
hctwct.•n mychical and harm on i c a ! thinkinJ.,t ..:\ccorJing to
Cassircr. m y thica l t hin k in� begins in each case with a
l.'crtain n:al imagc-·conccpt such as the world egg or the
worlJ ash tree, and then adds on co chcsc srmhols further
image-con cepts w h i ch , like the in i t ial sy m h o L appear to
our modern thinking m ore or less arhitraq· or at least
exte rn al correspondences. H•lrmonics. on the other hand,
begins ics corresponding series ·not with an arhitrary
symbol ( worlJ egg. etc.) hut with a harmonica) value­
form '>I' prot otype , whose initial theorem is a ncho re d
psycho-physically in na ture and in the psyche. As such,
it is accessible to the criteria of rc :t son (number) and
feeling (tone). anJ thus can hl· c , aluatcd and j udged ab­
·

str:u:tly and c onc retely . From these condcnsc r� l c n scs of

the harmonica! ,·alul•-forms thl· rt.·spt.•cti,·e co _ rr�spond­
cncl':i rhcn r a d i ate outward as toward the . pcri phcrr of a
'-·irdc. B\· thcmscln:s. rnnsidcred ::;:i1lw111 the focus of the
li:ns. rhcy SCl'lll just as arhitra r�· as rhc m y th ica l thi nk i n g
dcli1ll'att.·d lH· Cassircr. hut ':dthiu rl1at focus the\' arc in­
'
rorporatcd into our t.·ausal th i nk i ng- and arc. a function
of prl·(isel�· these prototypt.•s or ,·altu:-forms. Let us illus­
trat e rliis \\'ith an example: that of the Trini.ty. Tn har­
monics \\'l' ha,·c ,·arious theorem� of this concept . which
arc all united in the same prototype. Only two will he
 107

mentioned here, which nm\;

. he \'Crificd ln·
. Tahlc 11 at t h e
end of the book. \Vc find, right here in the hcl-{inning of
the system (upper left) the diagonal \·:tlul's n ·o - I /I
--. 2 2 J'.l ..f..-'4 . . • , which we idcntit\ in till' lrnr­
monical symholism a11 the Holr Ghosr ( o ·11). the Father
( J . 1),
' .md the Son (2/2 J/3 4 '4 . . . ) . :\!though
different in their external symbols, in their inner \.':tlucs
thcr are ne ve rthel ess c<Juintlcnt; because they :\II have
the generating tone-\:;llue c. ( I / I c;tn he taken for c, hut
in principle any other tone may be thc generating tone
l / l. The pitch of the generating tone is not important
but the relation of all other tones to their generating tone
is. This relationship remains constant no matter which
tone is taken as 1/1. In order to reach the right pitch
we would have to multiply I Ile with 256 hccausc 256
\•ibrations per scconu arc required.) The symbol 0/ll
signifies the Godhead. in Christian symbolism the Holy
Ghos t: l : 1 signifies the creative principle, in Christian
symbolism God the Father: the further re-embo<limentlii
2.12 313 4/4 . . . signif�· the Redeemer line. in Chris­
tian symbolism God the Son. who manifcsts himself again
;\nd again in the world of reality. Then ;mother form of
the Trinity. which ttlso stands at the beginning of the sys­
tc:m of partial tone coordinates: we find there I '2c'
111 c 2 'I c,-in triangular form in the Pythagorean lamb­
doma arrangement:

l/l c

l/2c' 2/ l c,
108

Herc the different values of c (octaves) with e qu a l con­

tent (nothing bu t c value�), r e v e al the secret of a d ogm a
which is bey•.>nd all reason, n a m e l y , that t�frce arc one anJ
·

yet di ff crcnt.

"Tlw I h n:c '' ,.,. 0111: !

Do you know lwtu.� No! .
The .sur.:1 k110M;J ii.st:(/ /JL'JJ.1'

This appears in a mystical hymn from the thol!ght of

Dionysius the .-\rcopagitc. ( 77) But in h arm onics we
ha\·c the t h eor e m of the trinity i n
prccis� anJ u ndcr­
a

stanJabh: form at the very beginning of ton.al d eve lo p ­

ment. Since this tonal development. is no arb · �trary theo­
retical ima g e but, a� we m u st always .· �·emcmbcr, is
re a l i ze d in nature ( 78) as well as in 0tir souls, the har­
monica) prototype of the trinity act1uirc� a· very. concrete
and obligatory content: we unJcrstand now th at . this pro­
totype as a functional value-form mL1st realize and create
its ectypical forms· in o u ter nature aruJ within. human
thinking an<l fe e l i n g . I have cal le d the prototype of the
harmonic trinit}i the value-form of 11triadk · unfoldi1ig11
( 79) and ha\.'C pres e nt e d some of its .cctypical. re a li z a ­
tions as value-forms of the "step-dialectic"". ( 80) The
following corre sponJc nc cs arc appare1�t there: the myth­
ological. akhcmistic symhols of trinity- .-
. the :\·aJcncin�"
of cr�·stal surface Je\·dopmcnt (Fl I)- · -th�· 1�H1sical ca­
dence-the t r i ptych in �f.l inting and snilpturc-. the Jialcc­
tical three steps of thesis. antithesis and synthesis of
lo�ic-to which of course sti l l further correspondences
could ht: addcJ . .-\11 these correspondences, wl1ich at first
seem not to have a ny th in g to Jo with one .another. m:ty

be read from the tona l srstcm visually and logfrally. ;rnd

 109

he re duced to the prototype of the lrnrmonit· truuty

theor ems The)' ar c arranged-using the abon im a gc
. ­

as ec tn > ic al " realizations on the pcriph:-)' of a circ le ,

"

whose center is the harmonica! trinity. These arc not , as

in myt hical thinking, <trbitrnry correspondences, but show
th emselves to be ca mm l functions of n de :; 1 itc psycho­
.

physical form, that is, pre ds c l y thnt of the corresponding

harmonica! valul!-form. \Vhen we think the ma tt e r
through nnd then consider once more Cassirer's definition
of mythic al thinking, we arc confronted with the quest ion :
Should it not be po ssible to grasp nll th ese corrcspon<.1-
ences of mythological symbols anJ im<lgcs Jircctl�·-if
they arc not obvious nonsense but the genuine olJ and
universal images-as protot ypical value-form s ? Har­
monics recognizes nn extensive realm of so-c nl l cJ number
n1perstitions ns bein g determined psychologicall)', as a
result of c�rtnin ton e number figu res present in the s oul
-

{ 82). The above-mention ed septuarch)'• the seven system

of the Zunis, superficiallr a ppearing as a "wild" totemis­
tic correspondence hierarchy can be psychologically
.

grounded by h a rmonics, and sho wn to be rooted in the

musical meaning of sc\·en :as the first number that ge n er ­

ates dissonance, and furthci: in the pr otot ypic al sc\.'en

ste ps of the sc;llc. The same holJs rruc for the astrologi­
cal th eor)' of aspect s which has hl•cn explain e d since
.

antiquit)' 1m1.I ag;•in h�· Kq>h.·r (SJ). hr way of musical

intervals, that is, ps rch ic shapes. Further, we � an prove
·

harmonically that Cassir�r's "t h i ng conc ept" ( Dillgln·­

-

g,.iff)
of the worl d ash mentioned abo v e goes back to the
image concept of the tree common to nearly all myth olo ­

gies and religions-the tree of Parndist·, ctl'. This can

be deduced Jirc:ctl�· from the Jichotom)' (the tfo•ision o f
 9

r e to h · h n

th orcm -. The 1 • r

. l
110

the partial tone coordinates) which corresponds to a

definite fundamental structure of our soul and thinking
(see the diaeresis of Platonic ideas). ( 84) Acco!·dingly,
mythical thinking is not merely an incomplete forerunner
of today's scientific thinking, but is a human effort toward
truth, fully as valid, even if differently structured. Or.
the basis of his thesis about the different modalities of our
thinking capacity, Cassirer arrives at similar deductions,
ascribing an equal value to the different forms of thinking.
Besides, he points out sharply and clearly the pros and
cons o.f the two ways of thinking; the thinking of today
must first, before anything else, "br�ak things down"
before it can build up again, and even then it only attains
"certain rules of becoming", whereby "certain quantity
orders of one thing determine those of another according
co a general rule"; and further, the "form of the whole
as it exists to sense perception or pure cognition, disap­
pears". Finally, Cassirer, like all other thinkers of his
kind, is convinced that modern science has overcome
mythical thinking, but that a true surmounting of the
latter would have to rest on its recognition and accept­
ance, because it still smolders at the threshold of con­
sciousness.
Herc then harmonics is faced with an important task,
the reintroduction of harmonic value-forms in scientific
thought, not as an antiquated "m)•thologism" which ought
to be overcome, but as a new spiritual structure verifiable
by number and by the causality of scientific method. It
will be shown then that mythologies are more than things
chat existed long ago but are of no actual value today.
Rachcr, th e y will be seen as cquaJly important to today's
thinking on the premise that one can understand them
 111

causally, and incorporate them into contemporary meth­

ods of thought. Above all, the danger of mythology·
smoldering at the threshold of consciousness is averted i
one rules ghosts only by calling them, and harmonics in
the realm of science may fulfill a mission similar to that
of depth psychology and its neighboring disciplines.
This equivalence of mythical thinking with present day
thinking appears to be substantiated by the results of
modern psychology, particularly that of C. G. Jung. The
discovery of the collective unconscious, and of the arche­
types which have grown out of it, integrates mythical
consciousness, as far as psychology is concerned, into our
causal thinking. Indeed, we sec that the latter is in many
respects dependent upon archetypal image-concepts which
slumber in the collective unconscious, and through the
soul's activity somehow take sh�!",., fructifying and deter­
mining the whole course of our causal thinking.
Thus considered, the aims of harmonics and those of
modern psychology run parallel, but there is a difference
between the harmonic prototype (or value-form) and the
archetype of Jungian psychology. First of all, the pro­
totype is anchored psycho-physically both in nature and in
our psyche, not merely psychologically, like the arche­
type. Thus the prototype, due to its synthesis of tone
and num�er, can be handled accurately, a p1·iori, in a sci­
entific way, and can be made directly accessible to in­
tellectual perception (see: the intellectual archetype of
Kant) through alldition i·is11cllc and its diagrams. By
this means the meditative powers of the soul receive a
concrete support, making possible the training of an
akroatic attitude, not relying on the mere assumption of
certain primordial images, but knowing that these pri-
112

mordial images or prototypes are realities and truths

within us and outside us-so far as one can speak of
evidence at all. And finally, the pcith or, more precisely,
the direction, by which prototypes and archetypes are
attained, is different from the ways of psychology. The
perceptions of depth psychology proceed from outside in.
From the experiences and analyses of psychologists, data
are set fo·rth whose significance necessarily leads to the
assumption of archetypes. Harmonics on the other hand.
inquires first into the laws of tone-number configurations,
finding there certain prototypes and then, proceeding
from these prototypes or value-forms, discovers ectypical
parallels in the outside world, that is, in the forms in
nature, soul and spirit corresponding to those value­
forms. In general, one can say that the archetypes were
found by the psychologists only empirically and deduc­
tively, and that their number could vary according to the
interpretation of individual psychologists. Thus for ex­
ample the archetypal image of the "Great Mother" may
be divided into independent aspects, such as virgin-,
sophia-1 witch-1 whore-image, etc. These findings are evi­
denct!d only through the accumulation of facts, and the
compar ison of psychic imnge-pro<lucts of the individual
with those of tribes an<l peoples, which are manifest in
their myths and legends. The procedure of harmonics, in
contrast, is more: defii�;tc: instead of the mere collecting
of data, the disclosure of ·certain archetypes, harmonics
offers prototypes ( valul!-forms) which can be interpreted
not on l ) psycho-empirically, but \\ hich have their concrete·
' '

and Jemonstrablc corrcsponc..lenc:cs not -onl�· in parallel

images (as myth represents them regarding dreams),
but also in physical, mt!asurable and provable material
 113

actualities. Thereby any subjective arbitrariness of in­

terpretation is removed and instead, a tangible, ectypical
correspondence appears.
In regard to modern scientific thinking, we should first
of all be clear about its origin. As a result of Hermann
Friedmann's work ( 85) we have been aware that this
kind of thinking is haptic in its fundamental structure,
especially since the Renaissance, and is oriented toward
the way of thought of the natural sciences. In harmonics
we find the reason for this haptical thinking, with its
mainstay of measure and number (see Chapter II) in
Pythagorism itself, of whose two original approaches
of tone and number, only the numerical, haptical aspect
was further developed in later times as the foundation of
all further scientific investigation. Religion, philosophy
and art, with their various manifestations, naturally we.re
not excluded. But the specific way of thought of natural
science, especially as it has crystallized within the last
two hundred years in the haptical sciences par excellence
-physics and technology-has become so overweening
an influence in all spheres of knowledge, and in almost
our entire structure of thought and attitude towards life
(civilization, comfort, etc.) that we would do well not to
shut our eyes to this haptification. We should recognize
it for what it is: a wholly unnatural forward-rushing,
violating all human proportion, of a very one-sided apti­
tude, whose demonic virulence seems to have sounded its
first great warning signal in the atom bomb. If we do not
turn back to the ht1man aspect, it might well be the last
warning, the final handwriting on the wall.
The structure of this haptical thinking is clear!�· ex­
pressed in the quotation from Cassirer ( p. 103) which wt;
114

ought to note well. It says that the logical thought of sci­

ence: finds a connection between the elements of being,
only there where "certain quantitative variations of one
determine those of another, according to a general rule".
The highest synthesis of this "general rule" is then the
system of the laws of nature, an incontestable unity of
the whole world attained by means of logic and reason,
basc:d on measure and number, and achieved only through
the preliminary "breaking down" of existence, making it
a matter of utter indifference to our spiritual health
whether this so-called unity is verified by static or dynamic
formulae.
The relation of harmonics to present day science may
be summed up in the simple proposition: not measure and
number but measure and value. It is this which today's
civilization must come to recognize if it is ever again to
become a culture. And we do not mean measure here (sci­
ence) and value there (religion, philosophy, art, etc.),
but a regeneration of the scientific way of thinking from
both Pythagorean approaches, hence a re-introduction
of spiritual principles and laws (tone I) into the hereto­
fore purely haptical way of thinking (number). In this
manner scientific thinking not only will acquire human
warmth and human responsibility once more, but the
realms outside this kind of thinking, such as religion and
the arts, will again be joined with scie11tific thought
through the symbols of the harmonica I value-forms, and
be lifted out of their regal isolation which made them
matters for holidays and "leisure hours" onlr. The possi­
bility of this regeneration is given in the primary phenom­
c:non of the: tone-number and the laws and principles flow­
ing from it, and harmonics is the method bv which this
possibility may· be transformed into reality.
 x

Limitation and 1·eflution.

To a researcher whose science is also concerned with

humane pursuits, harmonics might be a desirable goal,
as it gives new value to scientific thought and replenishes
the individual scientific discip l ines with the mother's
milk of harmonica! prototypes, th u s bringin g them closer
to man as a whole. However, this enterprise migh t seem
e nti rely unnecessary to a rigidly haptical scientist.

In his viewpoint along with harmon ics a new science of

, ,

a somewhat marginal quality might develop \Vhich would

be tolerated as long as it attended to n othing but its
own concerns. As it has done hitherto, harmonics would.
comply gladly, remaining conscious of the high value of
116

the most specialized research, without which no particular

·

progress could be gained.

But aren't.there sciences enough today? Does it make
any sense at all to examine the world for. the nth time from
a new ·perspective by heuing, and again for the n'11 time to
achieve some more or less interesting results, which may
not improve the world one iota, at least with ·respect to
our present position today: at the edge of the abyss?
Although they are by no means the discovery of har­
monics alone, measure and value are superb principles.
Harmonics can fertilize all fields of hun)an knowledge
at the source, in the clear streams of its theorems aod
value-forms. All great minds of the past, all important
founders of religion, all artists and poets· 9f genius, have
concerned themselves in some way with these two princi­
ples of humanity in their works �nd <:ieeds. for them,
measure and value were the two great poles, the. two
fundamental boundaries within which it is permitted to
be Man. Nevertheless, today we stand before an ab­
solute bankruptcy of this humanity itself. · '

Just a hair's breadth further, and such reftections lead

either to nihilism or to the religious culture-skept_icism of
a Pascal or a Shestov. ( 86) Yet a small step further,
and we despair of everything or see our only salvation in
a grace which is not of chis world, a world in which every­
thing seems condemned to folly and madness.
But are we allowed to take that step? Are there not
moments in the life of everyone, however hard, unbear­
able. seemingly meaningless it may have been,· in· which
he knows: now something wonderful has happened­
perhaps the experience of beauty, the inspiration of a
good deed, the innermost joy in work, in treating, the
 117

divine spark of love from person to person? \Vas that a

nothing, an error, a folly? And even if these moments
shrink in memory to something rare and precious: were
they not real once, didn't a reffection of the divine light
shine in them? Let us admit this, just this little-and I
believe there is no man who could deny it wholly-and
we need not take that "small step". Indeed, we cannot
and must not take it, because now we know in our inner­
most soul : those penetrating experiences, moving and
exciting to us even now, were a sign that our life has a
goal. They tell us that we have a mandate from a world
of laws, whose message we were permitted to receive in
our lives. It is the task of each of us in his place to realize
the sense of this message.
Reaching this point demands the highest measu're of
self-renunciation in view of the horrible events of the
recent past. We should remember the bright stations in
our lives, as we remember the bright stations of humanity,
the great values which were achieved and established in
science, art and religion. They were messages of a higher
power of good which give to mankind its veritable rights
to existence.
The deeper we have looked into the abyss of error, and
the deeper we were and are entangled in it ourselves, the
more will we cling to these flashes of light i� human his­
tory. But today, after the fearful experiences lying be.
hind us, we shall pose the question much more intensely
and comprehensively about the meaning of our existen ce
than we were wont to do in earlier times. It is only natural
that in this respect people today should look for new
orientations, and for these we return to the considerations
mentioned in Chapter I.
 Despite rhc ahysses wh ich arc about us, we still believe
in the good in this world. But this hct:�f in the g o od will
always h:we to he struggled for anew: measure and value
are not things to he given gratuitously. A new e po ch will
not he satisfied to orient itself on imperishable mod�ls of
other time s hut will h:we to reestablish those great prin­
ciples as a new experience coming out of its own thinking
and situation.
1-formonics is not so presumptuous as to consider it­
self to he 1!1t' way to this oricntatio1), hut one of many
ways, all of which strive for the same goal, giving to some
extent a di r ect i o n in the midst of the most burning prob­
lems of today.
In the following chaµte1 we will attempt to summarize
....

the results of harmonica) research in some important

sub}ccts.
 XI

T/10119/11: 011� u/ th1· scnsrs; /l1ilo1ujl1J; orivi11 11/ f'hilusu/hy in

my1tici1111 ,· 11iri1 ,- stc/s o/ ta1111itiun.

Thought is n sens e , like all the rest of our senses.

Thought has it s physiological basis in · the brain as Jocs
vision in the ere. hearing in the car. Consequent!>' there
is also n sense of chinking. just as there is il sense of \·i­
sion, n sense of hearing. a sense of touch, ccc.
A fundamcnral mist;tkl· of all philoso phy (Ion· of wis­
dom) since Socrates has hccn its hclid that phi l o sophy
is possible 011/y hr means of chought amJ its lo�ical forms.
To call this a mistak�n idea seems a parad1.1x at lirst:
what else but reason coul�I hl' uscJ co philosophii'.l' with?
But is n ot kno\\'blJ.{c oi cl1l' s pi rit rhc �oal of phi­
losophy in the highest meaning of the word? I �l.'t us n:Hcct
120

as follows: llcsi<lcs having :i realm of being, e\•err sense

also has a realm of value. Th us the value of th.inking mav
rest on reason, the value of sight on the :;patial arts, the
value of hearing on music. But to consider that reason
alone has access to the spiritual is Vvestern arrogance.
".i\.l usic is a higher wisdom than all philosophy", Bee­
tho\'cn could still say in just defense, and who woul<l deny
that our other senses also, if their value realm is truly
experienced, lead to the gates of the spirit, to '\visdom".
Our cars, our t:yes, our sense of touch (Eros) all phi­
·
losophize· just as much as does our thi nking should we .

then limit the idea of philosophy to logical thought only,

and land where modern professional philosophy has
landed-at the "nothingness" of existenti�lism, with the
cerebral acrobatics of its self-important satellites?
All truly great philosophy of reason is nourished by
m ysti ci sm ( 87) which always embraces the whole human
being, even if this impression of wholeness can express it­
self only in p art By mysticism, naturally, I do not mean
.

a con f uscd bab blin g of romantic revellers and sleepwalk­

er s, hut all great ideas and creative tendencies born from
the primordial soil common to the world and to man. I
mean the m ot h e r sc;I in whose hidden depth' evcq•thing
cr�ati,·c is rooted, and from which alone it c a n grow an d

fl ou ri sh.
The "idi::i" of Plato is a my stical concept. The o,,,�
and th� Good of Plotinus arc mystici1l concepts. Leibnitz'
"monaJs", those unities of bo<ly and soul out of which the
\\'orld is built. Kant's "thing-in-itself", C\.'en Hegel's
''concept". Schopcnhauc..-'s "will and idea", are lik ewise
myscical. only to be: expcric:nccd by an effort of the human
'l\ty�1ici�111 co1111"> from "''"T11(•is mc:aning hiddcn.-Tr.
 12 l

being as a totalitr, and not through formulations which

are th e result of logical disjunction (hairsplitting): all
touch s om eth i ng of the spi rit , all share in the highest man
can reach: inte rpre tati on of the me ani n g of the worlJ.
Also art, poetry, music, religion, science, technol og y , and
even every human life, partake of it , as long as the ex­
p er ienc e of the good is pre se rved and the 11primal phe­
nomenon" is honored and not me re ly used. lt is no m ere
accident that people ha\'c al wars called the man with
such an attit ud e ''philosopher".
Philosophy-lo\'c of wisdom in its mo.st c ompre h e n si v e
meaning-can thus be g a ined by the most varied human
expressions and activities, and the " s pi r i t " , as the last out­
post, c an be reached in ma nifol d ways, not merely by
means of our thinking and its logical forms. This spirit
is no longer subject to space, time and causalit�·· It is
wholly inconse q uential whether we reach it statically or
dynamically, cosmologically or biologically, throu�h art
or science, for it stands ou tsi de all of t h ese : indeed it
stands outside consciousness itself. This spirit is a purelr
meditati1..-e st a te of the soul, an imme r sion in the sti llne ss
of God.
Br means of our sense organs: brai n, eye, car, sense of
touch, etc. we receive at first nothing but material im pr es­
sions.. All th ese impressions arc factuallr registcri:J, and
ordered acco r u ing to till· structure of the individual senses.
Herc a p sr chic fa cul t y operates: for all i m p r essi ons would
rem ;l in chaotic w ere there not a '' som e t hi ng " in our soul
to bring them up into consciousness and to shape them
there.
But this "something" lies in the protot yp es of the soul
and not in the logical forms of our reason. The s ynt hesis
122

of these perceptions we call in harmonics the human realm

of being. If the different realms of being: those of think­
ing, seeing, hearing, touching, etc. arP. activate
. d from
within outward, that is, ignited from a point in the soul
which we feel is the deepest and best in us, and through
which we experience suddenly the respective realm of
being in its own "primordial" sound, light, or tone-then
we have attained the value-realm. We step out of logical
laws into the laws of intellect, out of thought into poetry,
out of hearing noises iato the world of music, out of
everyday seeing into the world of the visual arts. And if
we have the power and the inner attitude, the industry,
the spiritual fire to transform the exalted experience of
this value-realm into a state of rest, of meditation, of
"insight" in the sense of Goethe, then we have attained
what aknfosis understands as "hearing and belonging",
that which we may designate as spirit and the spiritual.
 XII

ActiC1ation of tlu soul; tlu indiC1iJual and tht community; haC1·

in1 timt,· tlu dan9trs of mass cullurt,· position of txisltnu
""''"' ,· toltranu; llumanily objectiC1ity; u11iC1trsality.
,·

For the reasons just stated, one of the primary tasks

of harmonics must be that of activating the capacity for
experience within each of the spheres of human knowl­
edge, especially within the .sphere of Western civilization.
The events of recent history have shown, if anything, that
Europe is spiritually impoverished. But spiritual impov­
erishment is the back-sliding from the value-realm into
the realm of being, the extinction of the capacity for ex­
perience, a turning of the latter into fanaticism-and the
inability, bound up with it, to feel with other people, to
experience with them their fortune and misfortune. In the
124

proposition of the tone-number, harmonics sees the means

for rekindling the spark that ignites the experience of the
beautiflil� the good an<l tl:r true. From experience to re­
spect, to awe, is but a small step, like holding in the breath
before the majesty of the divir . But first the heart must
be on fire with enthusiasm ana love, before we may re­
ceive the grace to behold the divine, to hear the melody of
creation. Nothing significant ever came out of sober
thought since the world began. To the contrary, all love­
lessness, arrogance, self-righteousness, 11propriety11, the
craze for objectivity, for overorganization, yes, even
intolerant fanaticism disguised by false enthusiasm, have
their true motivation in the inability to sympathize with
others in their joy or sorrow. This sobriety of the soul is
nothing but a compensation for spiritual shrinking and
hardening.
Close to this is the problem of the individual and his
relation to the community. It is easy to foresee that hu­
manity will propagate quantitatively to �uch a degree
that individuals will scarcely be able to move any more.
This danger of the individual being dissol v t: d · in the
masses is not only a thr1.�at in matters of qu�ntity, but also
of quality. Already, today we are exposed to a whole se­
ries of collectivisms, "claims" absorbing mind and soul in
the professions, in sports, in politics, conveyed by all pos ­
sible media for mass suggestions (radio, press, the.atre !
clubs, lectures, concerts, television, e�c.) so that a magni­
fying glass would be necessary to find people who �'have
time". Everyone with an ordinary occupation should ask
himself how much time he has for himself, not egotis­
tical l y , but for the salvation of his soul; how much time he
 125

has to reflect on why he is in this world1 and what it

means, what sense his work makes except for earning a
living and, most of all, to ponder on the one certainty in
his life, that unique point in the distance= namely, Death.
But for such questions one has "no time11 one barricades
1
oneself behind work, work, work aud does not notice that
1
thereby one is fleeing only from oneself. Out of fear of
solitude one rushes around more and more, screams in
frenetic activity as though driven by the devil.
Finally, one worships only the demons Ambition, Self­
assertion1 and Power. But at the end at the very moment
1
in which one literally "has no more time11, when the clock
stands s'till: in the hour of death-that is when one would
wish to "have time11• Ora el Jabora, it says, and not La­
bora el Jabora. And· by ora (pray) I understand medita­
tion and the recognition of higher powers and values.
Only thus is labora (work) made sacred and not through
1
a magna carta of purely utilitarian promises which only
burden the soul the more with an increased fury of work,
and inflates external comfort beyond measure. We read
for example a full-page advertisement which begins:
"Does this young woman know that every woman really
shou
. ld own three watches: one for work a second for
1
sport and a third for evening dress ?11 Whoever buys the
1
three watches must work that much harder, must earn
more money and "have less time11, in order to purchase
these three watches. Pardon this banal example-it stands
only as a symbol for hundreds of other "three watches11,
as a most serious reminder that we imagine we can buy
Time thrice over, while it runs out of our hands and our
lives just through these purchases.
126

"But woe! Our generation walks in the night,

Dwells in He!J, without the divine. Each is chained
Only to '�is ow11 doing, and in the roaring workshop
Hears 11othing but himulf, and the wretches work hard
Jf'ith mighty arm, without rest, but again and again
The labor of the poor remains as fruitless as the Fu­
ries."
-Holderlin, The Archipelagus

Thus the masses pressing in on modern man in every

way so threaten to squeeze him that he has hardly any
sap left over for his individual life. It is sure that we can­
not escape this tendency toward mass culture, but it is
also sure that it can be dissolved in communities where the
single individual then will not only be able to move again,
but alsc ...... ill "have time" to reflect upon the saying -yvw81.
uEavrov, know thyself. Herein also lies the problem of
freedom. Anyone who lives outwardly only, in steady
fear of being alone with himself, may imagine he is doing
useful things, but he is like a chained dog leashed to a
thomand necessities, knowing nothing of freedom, which
can be engendered only in the free space of the soul
around its own self and the self of others. Man can thrive
only in the quiet of a meditative state and only from there
will tlow a genuine humanity of thought, purpose and
feeling.
In harmonics we have some important theorems and
\'•due-forms on this theme, which show that even in the
laws of nature and of the structure of the soul there are
prototypes present which, in the sense of the .above meta­
phor, do ''have time".
Every harmonica! existence-value has its own special
 127

place, its position in the system, and must be satisfied with

it. It can, to be sure, choose the resonances with other
existence-values, can soften dissonances •!ml strengthen
consonances; but it must for good or ill fit itself into a
given community. By its uniqueness, its special quality, it
is not dependent on its environment, not even on its birth
( l/ l = origin) 1 but solely on the highest world principle
( 0/0 = archetype), the world's spirit, the Godhead.
Here it no longer obeys any collective system, here it is
no longer "important" as a member of a social order, but
is equivalent in full autonomy to every other existence­
value, 1 thus being directed toward the highest principle
of the primal source of all things. Humanly speaking, this
means that we are all incorporated through birth and
environment into some kind of social community where
we must accommodate ourselves somehow; but in our in­
nermost nature, at the core of our individuality, we are
completely free, and responsible only to one authority:
the Godhead. And as to the interrelation between man
and man it means: respect and awe before every human
life, before every human individuality. No hypocritical
fault-finding with each and all, with the beam in one's eyes
obstructing vision, but a loving sympathy for the positive
side in our neighbor, whom the Creator has fashioned
just as well or as poorly as ourselves. Thus in akraasi.t
individual and community arc not opposites, hut in a nat­
ural way are related to each other a nd dependent on each
other. (88)
There is more to be gathered on this subject from har­
monica! prototypes. Every existence-value stands in a
particular interval relation to its surroundings. that is, in
1 Harmonically, by way of the identity ray�. See Table II.
128

a particular proportion. But each proportion can operate

only within certain "tolerances", either of the position or
of the individual value. In other words: each existence­
value has its "atmosphere", which lifts it out of its rigid
fixation and leaves it certain freedoms of relationship.
Here, on the basis of harmonical investigations, we see ·

the first glimmer of the principle of tolerance. It is up to

man to become conscious of this principle, to experience
it, and to guide it into a humanity which translates into
reality what actually exists already in nature and in the
·

soul1 imprinted by the creative spirit. ( 89)

Summing up, we find that this attitude of man toward
himself and toward his environment differs fu11damentally
from what is current today. Anyone accustomed to think­
ing and feeling akroatically knows that there is no "ob­
jectivity" in the sense of a world of facts detac!-i�d from
human beings; he knows further that we can only think,
feel, and judge "anthropomorphically", that is, measured
from a human viewpoint-sub specie aeternitatis (facing
eternity).
At first this seems frightening, especially to the scien­
tific way of thinking, and is in a certain sense equivalent to
·

the surrender of the claim to any knowledge.

But let us also look at the problem from the other side.
Has not this so-called "objectivity" led us to where we
stand today: to the detachment of man and humaneness
from factual material, which is now going its own inhu­
man way? How easy it was in times of danger to hide be­
hind "Science", "Art", "Politics", etc., and_ to shrug off
human responsibility for everything else. Furthermore: is
it possible at all not to think, measure, and feel anthro­
pomorphically, meaning, without the human scale 7 Even
 129

the most "objective" sciences-mathematics and ph)1sics

-depend on the human forms of logical thinking by
which we find the laws of :.ature. Here we are not deny­
i ng an objectivity in the sense of general validity of scien­
tific research. Harmonics claims such objectivity for itself
just as does any other research, and without it even the
concept of harmonical prototypes would be nonsense. But
it was expressly formulated above: "objectivity in the
sense of a world of facts detached from human beings".
Whenever, by devious means, it gains recognition, we
have that detachment of the human from the world of
facts. Then appears that irresponsibility, especially in
scientific circles and those of art and research, which has
struck us so bitterly in the past decades.
Harmonics does not allow any self-deception in this
respect; in fact, it goes even further. Its findings show
that everything, from the atom to the planetary system,
from biological forms to the images of soul, thought and
feeling, concern us most personally. The forms which we
carry within us echo from the "you" of nature surround­
ing us; even sorrow and joy, the dark and light world of
our soul, ring out in the structure and developmt!nt of the
atom and the crystal. The whole world is nothing less
than a great admonition: Tai lwam 11si!-This is you!
Out of this answer arises a tremendous responsibility for
us human beings, an awareness of a mission whose hith­
erto questionable realization should not roh us of the
courage for it, because it is a task for whose s a k e we were
created as human beings. In the first place, I cannot do
just as I like with material things, whatever is advanta­
geous to my own use. I know-and here·harmonics gives
very precise evidence ( 90 )-t hat alrcad�, in the first units
130

of matter (atoms, crystals) psychic forms of dark and

light, minor and major, are realized in latent sounds, but
are imprisoned there by the inexorable laws of nature, un­

able ·to "free" themselves unless they are redeemed

through Man. St. Paul says that creation waits longingly
for redemption through men.2 Thus I commit a crime
against this matter if I use it only for destruction, and I
violate the good thereby not only in myself, but also in
helpless nature. Of course, with such views one stands in
a ridiculous disproportion between what ought to be and
what is. Imagine a harmonicist on a tour of the physics
laboratories of the world today, trying to promulgate his
ideas in these Devil's kitchens. He would not get very far
and would probably be "institutionalized" at the first at­
tempt. But in just such a disproportion once stood for ex­
ample Kant's essay On Eternal Peace. Would it not have
been more beneficial to mankind, and especially to the
fatherland of Kant, if they had since then obeyed Kant's
maxims?
Personal responsibility then, in the direction of the
values of humanity and tolerance, is what harmonics must
demand today, if a demand may be made at all.
But such a responsibility, should it ever be applied by
educators and scientists, will always be tied to a certain
universality. This concept also has .come to be discredited
today and is deemed by many to be an impossibility. How
arc things in reality? Is it truly impossible today to be
"universal" in the sense of a Leibnitz or a Goethe?
That the specialized sciences, necessarily one-sided,
"Rorna11• VIII: 19 & 21: For the earne�t 0:11ectation of the creature wait·
c:ch for the manifcstatiun ui the :ions of God ... Becau11c the creature
irsclt shall he deli\·ered from the bondage of corruption into the &lorious
liberty of the children of God.-King Jame11 Ver.
 131

have their justification, has already been observed and no

one who underst�nds the need for specialization will con­
test it. To take only one example, the University of Ge­
neva recently introduced "General Courses" as an antidote
against exaggerated specialization in academic life. These
courses were meant for all departments, and were de­
signed to deal with questions which should interest all
educated people. This is very praiseworthy, but also an
admission that something is not right with "Universitas",
meaning the totality of all things. It is moreover an
admission of the bankruptcy of modern philosophy which,
just because it has become "scientific" and thus specialized,
cannot and will not fulfill its real task, which is to occupy
itself with what is "common to all departments". But do
"general courses" provide a substitute? If one removes
the cream fr'>m all departments, pours it into the churn
of such "general courses" and makes a kind of university
butter out of it, it may amount to an interesting and wel­
come attempt at providing spiritual -nourishment. To­
ward a real healing of the evils of "excessive specializa­
tion", however, little is gained. This must come not from
without but from within, through discovery and investiga­
tion of those forms and prototypes which are common to
all sciences, through a sensible relationship of these forms
with the soul, that is, with the ethical realm of man, and
through a humanitarian realization of the knowledge
won thereby. Harmonics here shows 01u· way; ·it could,
if it found the right interpreters and coHaborators, work
as a "bacillus syntheticus" in the universities of today
without disturbing the departments and disciplines in their
own fields. But for interpretation and collaboration a
certain universality is needed, and if we pose the question
132

whether universality is possible, I would answer with a

"yes", even for our time.
What does universality mean? Certainly not an officious
all-knowingness, but a knowledge of and an interest in
essentials.
It is easy to prove that the prime examples of univer-·
sality in the past, such as Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas,
Lc::ibnitz, Goethe, and others, often did not know or show
any interest in things that were by no means unimportant.
They did not care for an analysis of encycloped.ic knowl­
edge but strove for a synthesis of the essential knowl­
edge of the manifestations and e vents of their times. But
this is sti ll entirely possible today. For instance, anyone
who reaJs German and has worked his way through B.
Bavink's book on the results and problems of natural
science ( 91 ) for h alf a year, knows the essentials in the
whole realm of today's natural science. Similar works are
available in the chief languages of the world for all prov­
inces of knowledge. Instead of just ''specialists", the
univc::rsities should educate "universalists" in the future.
These youn g people, well-rounded in their· interests and
t he re f o r e eminently suitable, would then in abo u t ten

semt!sters be as "universally" schooled as students of

single vocations are trained in their "special" field;,. and
accordingly w ould later r ec ei ve employment in ministries
of culture, u n ive rsi ti es , etc. Naturally, at first a gui din g
minJ woulJ be needed: however, I will not again recom­
mend harmonics in this connection lest the impression be
given that the author is spe a ki n g pro domo. Until the end
of his da�1s, the author has more than enough to do w ith
the:: building of the "house of harmonics".
As to the universality of harmonics as a field of re-
 133

search in itself, harmonics, like any other philosophy,

makes such a claim without, howeve·r, imagining ic can
solve "universally" the riddle of the world. A theory can
very well touch all or almost all fields from its own ap­
proach, throwing new light on them, here and there mak­
ing suggestions and discoveries, thus having universal
perspectives without forgetting that these proceed from
only one approach, one point of view. The more originally
and favorably this viewpoint-in the case of harmonics,
the "hearing j>oint"-is situated, the better, and the
more original and novel the aspects will be.
 XIII

Har111u11ics, a llu·ory of corrnpo11dtncn; J. Gcbur,• tlu {ltntral

a /idit y 11/ to11al relations,· tlu law o/ /1ar111onical qua11ta; scitnct
.,

and JruJom; tJ1c H tistnbcrg "Unctrlai11ty Principlt"; B. JJa.,id.

Bearing in mind the limiting and additional observa­

tions of Chapters IX, X, and XII, we may call harmonics
a theory of correspondences. Causal connections are sup­
ported by correspondences, which are centered always in
natural and psychological prototypes. But this transition
or, rather, transvaluation of the chain of cause and effect
into a ''Gestalt-series" of correspondences is an event
which by no means concerns harmonics alone, but one
which we can observe and follow everywhere. in the
changing shapes of our modern world image, if only we
sharpen our eye for it. To J. Gebser goes the credit for
 135

having pointed out for the first time this very interesting
metamorphosis of our modern thought and feel i ng. Al­
ready in his A bendliindische Wandlung (Changing Oc­
cident) (92}, and even more so in the brief but pithy es­
say Der granrnialische Spiegel (The Grammatical Mir­
ror (92) he shows by means of t�e most recent develop­
ments in different typical fields of research, above all .by
means of language and poetry, that, symbolically speak­
ing, the "and" is about to replace the "because11• In ethi­
cal respects-to give only one example among many­
this means that while "crime and punishment stand in a
concr�te causal connection, the atonement is not the con­
sequence of the guilt but its remission: a correspondence".
Thus between crime and punishment stands a logical "be­
cause": he was punished because he committed a crime;
whereas between guilt and penance there stands a cor­
responding "and"; they both return to the link between
sin a11d grace in religious expe rience . Thus harmonics,
without knowing it, automatically seems to fit into a newly
developing world image, within which a "mythical" type
of thinking (whose grammatical symbol is "and") will be
admitted on an equal footing with the sci'entific style of
thinking (whose grammatical symbol is "because"). This
may be observed in physics, biology, poetry, the arts, and
even in lang u a ge itself. To avoid misunderstanding, let it
be re p ea ted that "mythical" is not used here in Cas­
sircr's constitutive sense, now outdace<l, but rather as a
restoration of the theory of co rres pondences which has
,

gone through the purging fire of causality and conse­

quently is now able to prove its reinstatement by means of
causal thinking.
Harmonics has its scientific psychophysical fo.undation
136

in the universal validity of the principal intervals-oc­

tave, fifth, fourth, the thirds, and the whole tone. The
physical paradigm (model, example) for this is the nat­
ural law of the overtone series, l c1 2c' 3g' 4c" Se"
(according to the frequencies). The psychic paradigm for
it is the common sensitivity in all epochs and peoples to
these intervals as such, which must thus correspond to
spiritual forms comm_on to all epochs and peoples. The
universal validity of this sensitivity to the principal tonal
intervals has often enough been attacked, though without
success. For instance, tests have been made concerning the
precision of sensitivity to the octave, and indeed it was
observed that a certain percentage of people believed they
could only hear an octave (two string lengths in the ratio
of I :2 or I : �, "precisely", "correctly", if the string
lengt�s did not exactly fulfill the numerical ratios, but
were tuned somewhat inexactly. Anyone who repeats this
experiment with friends who are not especially "musical"
will find the solution to the mystery right away; many
cannot distinguish an octave tuned exactly as two tones at
all i they hear it as only one tone. If the octave on the
other hand is not perfect, many notice only then that thert:
are actually two tones, that is, an interval, and cry en­
thusiastically: Now I hear the octave I The universal
validity of interval sensitivity among different peoples has
also been doubted, particularly because in oriental and
primitive culture groups such complicated scales are used
that it was believed these peoples possesi;ed wholly differ­
ent tone sensitivities from ours. But anyone who listens
carefully to such music will immediately· notice that even
the apparently complicated melodic progressions move
around perfectly distinct diatonic hinges; that even here
 137

the main intervals are the decisive moments of the melodic

structure.1 Apart from practical musical activity, the
third, the octave and the fifth are seen as the fundamen­
tals of every theory of music since the earliest times.
These intervals must have been heard by ancient theorists,
as proved by Chinese and Indian tradirion1 as well as by
the Pythagoreans who used the monochord as an experi­
mental instrument for tone investigations, as1 most likely,
did the Chinese before them. And if we learn further
(93) that in a prehistoric Mammut hunting station in
Unter-Wisternitz in Bohemia, flutes from the stone age
have been dug up whose holes are so exactly bored that
one can still blow thirds on them today, we would be stub­
born indeed to doubt any longer the universal prevalence
of sensitivity at least to the main tonal intervals. (The
problem of the scale is quite a separate one.) Such a doubt
is on a level with questioning the laws of logical thinking
for the sake of a few blockheads and idiots. There will
always be people lacking accurate tone perception, and
others, so unusual that they cannot distinguish any inter­
vals at all. They are like those who are so color-blind that
they cannot tell red from green; but it would be prepos­
terous to question normality because of exceptional cases.
Thus we may accept as fact, without qualms, the psy­
chophysical foundation of the chief intervals on which
the structure of harmonics is built.
If we sum up into one term those harmonica} shapes
and forms which are graspable by means of scientific
causal thought, we may speak of a law of harmonica)
quanta. (94) This law is in a certain sense a framework,
'Thi11 wu confirmed by Dr. Jaap Kun�t. Sec: abo: Tiu Nucfrar Tlumr
111 a Ddtrmi11a11t i11 Paut i11 Ja.,u1uu Music, by Dr. Manti� Hood
{ Groninaen, Wolters) .-Tr.
138

a general scheme, which is then subdivided into special

individual laws, all however fitting into the general frame­
work, a:i::l capable of being detached from. it for each
special purpose. The general law of harmonical quanta is
symbolized by the overtone series and its rootedness in the
psychophysical. Perceptually one can r�present it in dif­
ferent ways. Physically, with a "perspective" power im­
pulse of an increasing or a diminishing kind (we might
think of a falling ball whose bounces diminish, or of the
law of falling bodies where the spaces increase. There is
also the optical spectrum, etc.). Psychologically, it may
be represented by the ever-narrowing intervals of the suc­
cessive overtones, the "perspective" energy curves, life
impulses, etc. Biologically, by the initial virulence and its
subsequent weakening, and also by the loga�ithmic growth
curve, etc. Historically, we find correspon<l�nces in the
decline of cultures ·after their high points, the turning
points of cultural epochs, etc. These few examples can
only suggest common ground synthetically expressed by
the general law of harmonical quanta. In further pursuit
of the investigation, particular laws will then. turn up just
as is the case with the partial-tone coordi!Jates based on
,

the ov e rtone series.

The establishment of this over-all law of harmonica!
quanta and its s pecial laws as harmonical theorems and
value-forms now adds, to what could be proved theoreti­
cally, a new factor which we quite generally designated as
psychical, and which belongs to what we ha v e named the
world of correspondences.
This step from "because" to "and" is .so decisive that
we must reconsider it and reflect on it anew and cast new
light on it from as many sides as possible.
 139

There is a widespread view today, particularJy in cir­

cles of natural science, that scientific thinking itself, espe­
cially in modern physics, will eventually. out of the con­
sequences of its own thinking and investigating, come to
grips with the problem of freedom, one of the: highest
value.concepts of mankind. This question hinges on the
so-called Heisenberg "uncertainty principle" which, based
on certain theoretical-physical insights, allows matter a
free behavior no longer subject to causality. One may
estimate what a sensation this discovery must have called
forth in a science such as physics. Just here, where till now
the strictest laws of causality supported by meas ure and
number prevailed, the light of freedom is suddenly sup­
posed to glow-a value which heretofore had been re­
served to life and its highest realization: the consciousness
of man.
But what kind of freedom is it which is said to show
itself in the behavior of the atom? May I be permitted
here some observations inspired by a lecture delivered
November 25, 1943, in Bern, Switzerland, by B. Bavink,
mentioned above.
If modern physics, in consequence of the uncertainty
principle, grants matter "freedom", a certain acaus a l be­
havior, in my opinion this freedom, will immed i a tely be
imprisoned again in causality and the old dete rm i ni sm by
the laws of probability. ThliS this freedom. in the real
sense of this concept, is without s i gni ficance for nature. It
is like t he f reedom of a man in prison who c an walk
around in his cell as he pleases, eat, sleep, etc., hut can­
not get out. If matter, moreover, accorJing to Bavink's
opinion, is only an arrangement of mathematical for­
mulae, a so -called " spiritu a l " {more correct would be
140

"logical") product, then this alleged spirituali zation is

actually only an image of a product that had been grasped
haptically in some experimentation, a· purely logical for­
mulation which has not hing at all to do with psychic ex­
perience and real sp i ritu ality , and is of little help to man
in his psychi c and spiritual anx:ei:y today. Bavink sup­
poses that the confirmation of thoroughly experimental
findings t hro ug h complicated mathematical formulae
which tax the power of thinking to a high degree, could
hold a gra tific atio n similar to viewing an alpine pano­
rama, or hearing the Passion music of Bach. In the case of
the mountain peak one might accept this reasoning, but
hardly as far as a Bach Passion is concerned, or a reli ­

gious experience. Physical-mathematical formulae, as th ey

are made use of today 1 are reftections, not prototypes;
they are i mages of causal space time laws of. nature which
-

are subject to statistics and probability; in other words,

to leveling tendencies. Mathematics too has its proto­
types : those, however, do not lie in "reckoning" and logi­
cal conclusions, but in perception, above all in geometry,
as shown by the ever broadening meaning for mathemati­
cal axioms of so-called projective geometry. "M118d�
<iyEwµ.irp71To� Elufrw µ.ou rfiv UTEY71
J111 ("Let no one igno­
rant of geometry step under my roof.") (95) was the an­
nouncement with which Plato greeted the prospective acad­
emician. Precise ly within the prime phenomena of '

geometry reigns the "and", not the "becau�e"; that is, a

series of correspondences. And how shall the usual mathe­
matics have access to the soul, and so have meaning and
not be 11purely formal" (as is emphasized ag�in and again
by prof cssional mathematicians, especially the "formal­
ists"), if it consciously eliminates the prototypical experi-
 141

ence of number which originates from the norms of per­

ception? By this elimination, mathematics dissolves into
a purely logical system of rationalities. (96) Mere think­
ing is not creative but regulative. And to connect with
what was said above: thought as a sense whose organ is
the brain, means connecting, sorting, putting in order,
developing one out of another, finding one's direction.
The sense of thought is the regulator for our three other
most important senses: touch, sight and hearing. Touch
has an ability for material, corporeal things; its access to
the divine is inscribed with the name Eros. The eye has
vision for forms and colors: its approach to the divine
goes by way of the arts. The ear takes the noise and
silence of the world; its approach to the divine is through
language, poetry, and music. All three senses-touch,
sight and r�,.ring-are directed by the mind; its access to
the divine is reason. It is true: not only the believer is
"religious", but also the intellectual; the spirit searches
the depths of God, says Paul.2 But in that case, knowledge
should be not only a matter of reasoning, but also a mat­
ter of the heart: that is, all sense channels through which
intelligence makes us knowledgeable should be oriented
toward the divine: and only with these numinous data (in
the sense of R. Otto, meaning: hallowing, related to the
divine) may knowledge then penetrate the depths of the
divine and not by a juggling of concepts of merely logic a l
thinking. For this reason the central problem of the evils
of the world must stay outside the possibility of being
grasped by the so�callcd scientific thinking. A mathemati­
cal formula is never "right" in a deeper sense, it only

1 I Cor. 2; 10: ". . for 1ht S11iri1 i;carchc1h all 1hing�, yea, 1hr drcp
china• of God."-King Jamc. Venion.
142

equates, that is, substitutes a logical equivalent for a fact.

But an equation is no correspondence to spiritual "ec­
types", images, symbols, but a �v 8«1 8vo'iv, meaning, the
same thing substituted through a logical equation. The
soul, which not only thinks but also feels, experiences, en­
joys, and suffers, requires a right or wrong for reason
and heart. Ascribing the origin of world evil to the ego­
tism of the living creature, as Bavink docs, is too simple,
or is at least secondary. One must seek the reason for
good and evil in the beginning of creation, still prior to
"dead" and "living" nature, and the original sin so
blamed by Bavink did not lie in the first human beings
actually to appear on this planet, but in the primordial
image of man, in "Adam kadmon".8 If this idea seems
too mystical, we could think of an inherent possibility of
decay already existing in the act of creation, be it the
operative quantum h or the word fiat (it shall be so). Not
only life, but all of nature, is subject to this a priori decay,
but the ancients knew more about it than we today. The
inquiry into the why is probably the one world-riddle we
human beings will never be able to solve, because we our­
selves are already saturated with the negative; somewhat
as one who wears blue glasses and therefore can no longer
see and recognize the blue of the sky and of the l�ndscape.
''In cah;ilism, the primordial Adam, archet)·pe of mankind.-Tr.
 XIV

Harmony; liar111011ics, a tluory of Int co11so11a11us and dissonn.,ns

of tli1 'World,· l1anno11ital intrr;rttatioR; llu planttary inttr�als ,·
co1mo/ogital i11ttr;rttation1 of tlu diagrams,· Jarln111 and light,·
tht "Goldtn A11",· reincarnation; t/11 mtta;hysical rttnaindtr.

These observations, occasioned by a lecture of B. Ba­

vink, leads us to the last of what remains to be said in
this book. Those who, having never read a work on har­
monics or occupied themselves with harmonical problems,
and in whose minds echoes only the word "harmony",
have often made the reproach that this theory is con­
cerned with an antiquated revival of
a bygone concept of

harmony, which cl;tims that the world is after all quite

beautiful and good, and that the good Lord, after six
days of strenuous work, on the seventh said contentedly:
It is very good. Even Leibnitz still thought of this world
as being the most beautiful and best oi all. :\s rc:garJs
the m eaning of the Book of Genesis, there remains of
cour .::: the storr of thc Fall, and as far as L c ihnit i. is con­
Cl'rncJ, [ am c on vi n ce d that this gn·at man, if lJucstioned
in private, cc rt\l inl )' would have added a suhsta1ttial ap­
pendix to his statement.
\Vhoevcr h:1s read thii; book t h i s far will know at least
one thing: that harmonics is not just dealing with com-·
fo r tah l c ''harmonization" but. in the first place, seeks an
un da st anding of the world by means of the minJ and
heart, and an un d e r s ta nd ing of the: consonances 11111/ dis­
sonan �· c s oi this world b:1scd on an acti,·ation of the soul 's
capability for renewed experience and cnthusiasm. Cer­
ta inly the 11knfo.�is is also full of the strains of a "har­
mony of the uni,·crsc", a thought which st:mds ultimately
behind every h u m an inquiry and bclicf, without which o u r
Ii fo would be \"Cl"}' hard to bear. But after the experiences
of the la �t de c ades we have becom\! more aw:tre of dis­
harmony, of the negative, of the demonic, of the world of
" non v al ue": every im•estigation toward comprehending
-

the wo rl d must confront this problem, even if one is con·

\·inced of its insolubility. I think much mar he gained if
\\'c Ii fr the problem from the s phe re of the: ''because" to

that of the ''and", if c a us a ll � speaking we recognize the

·

d1:cay factor as a constituent one. grasp it as an acti \ c ·

lon.·c. and ohsern: it 11mr.thically". n·co�nizing it with its

l·orrcspondcnccs as nn i n hl'r c nt 111:1-tation of the to ta l will.
The pure chords and mcloc.Jics of the good. the bcauti ful.
and tl1c true. will t he n sound the fuller in comparison.
Tn this respect we h:wc, in the: harn1onica1 th�·orcms.
soml!. important evidence which here o f course can onl�·
he suggested i n its main features and imparted in i ts re·
sults.
 145

First of all a n astronomical point. If \n: compare the

logarithms (to base I II) of the ml·an distancl's of the
plan e ts with the parti�il tone i·1�arithms (to hasc 2) of
the string lengths, the r e s ult is a se ri e s of tones ,,·hic:h ap­
pear as follows: ( 97)

t t" f --
rm Jt�t i i 'J
"

0 d'
� � Pl.. '.lt- 1:-,
>t< � (

�:ercury !:!.!:l!L. YlflnetoLds ->a turn Neptune

� � Jupl ter Uranua

If we r educe them to one octave, anJ omit the value of

the plan eto ids at present n o longer in existence (as a single
large planet), the result is as follo ws :

£ a�£-�a�,�· t�iE���t�-==+���-t��I
1'�
This cu ri ous scale shows in th e first h;.llf a Jccided
major, in the second a decided minor. im p u ls e . If \\'e ex­
amine the tonal material of Example I. we find a clearly
major ch a ra c t e r in tlH: seeps c a :.! f, al so the most
important intervals-third, fourth. fif tit a nd scco11d­
which lcaJs co the condusion th a t rhl· inner planets i\1cr­
cury, Venus, Earth and �filrs show posit i onal unity and
harmony. But with thl.' outl'I" p l a n e t s , J upitcr, S a tu rn . C ra­
nus and Neptune, we ha,·c the Jishannonic succession of
tones b Hat g c d fiat, with the primarr tendency to
rcsoh-e toward c, that is, the undalying distance: of I/ I
146

=the distance from the:: sun:, Now it is true that the loca­
tions of these planets (98) are not quite identical with the
corresponding tone-number:�, hut they are so close that
the morphological agreement is clearly in evidence. It is
comparable to a chessboard which has been given a little
shove so that the chessmen do not stand exactly in the
middle of their squares but could be brought back to their
right places immediately by any experienced player.
But from Example I we learn still more. The b ftat and
d values (when 1/1 = c) appear in the harmonic tonal
development, not separately like the rest of the senaric
values, but enharmonically doubled.1 Science has always
posed the question why the planetoids, which evidently
come from a shattered planet, appear just between Mars
and Jupiter, and whether they really had been a planet
originally. Harmonica} analysis is in a position to give an
explanation.
An exact comparison between the planet- and tone­
numbers shows that on the one hand the hypothetical
Planet X stood within the zone of the split of the two
enharmonic degrees between d and dv; but at the same
time it stood in the "most beautiful" position of the whole
planetary combination, because it occupied the middle
point (the third) of the only major chord occurring here
-b flat d f. One is tempted to say that Jupiter, which
represents the cone b flat, was "clever enough" to place
itself just outside the second enharmonic pair of the two
b flats, but in a position which yet, according to its sound,
still belongs to the b flat sphere. For anyone in the habit
of thinking akroatically, it is beyond all doubt that it was

'See Table II and the ratios = tone-\·alucs 8/9d, 9/lOd• and 9/&b ftat•,
10/9b flat.
 147

just this splitting of the tones d and dv which should prove

fatal to Planet X; for while it occupied the most "beauti­
ful" location in the planetary space, this was also the mos�
dangerous one. The thought comes in here of the ancient
mythological idea of Lucifer, who was the most beautiful
angel of the creative God, but who was too weak to serve
the Creator with true humility and rebelled against him,
and for this was expelled from the divine company. We
find this Lucifer problem in some form in nearly �II reli­
gions and myth ologies, and it is nothing but the mythologi­
.cal interpretation of the factor of decay. In harmonics
however we have a psychophysical interpretation: th e
factor of decay is preestablished not only in the constitu­
tion of the soul but in that of nature, and hence of crea­
tion itself. It is evident to the harmonicist that we have
here one of the deeper reasons, in terms of value-forms,
both internal and external, for the tragic decay from
which our planetary system and everything in it suffers.
The law of the original planetary harmony is still recog­
nizable, but each of these individual celestial bodies no
longer occupies precisely the location assigned to it by this
law. It must have been a tremendous catastrophe tran­
scending all imagination which shook the solar system
at the time of the pristine era of our cosmos. Considering
our recent hist o q pe rhap s it is not farfetched to assu me
•,

that Planet X harbored a race of creatures w h o lost every

measure of un de rstandi n g and res p onsibili ty anJ finally
,

fell to destruction, together with their planet. In any case

it seems ine vi tabl e that this catastrophe should have dis­
turbed the balance of the en tire planetary configuration,
and corroded the indi,,iJuality of all the planets, infecting
them to their core. Against this stands the comforting
148

fact that we can only judge disharmony by way of har­

mony, that we have a criterion for disorder cnly because
we know ar:d sense when we are presented with order.
There must therefore be in us as well as in nature a norm
�dhecte_d towar4s the divine; otherwise we would h�ve.no
way of judging either consonance or dissonance.
Further, there is a "cosmological" type of evidence on
this theme, which is based on the harmonic table of the
partial to11e coordinates.2 But again we must first remem­
ber that this, like all harmonical sound-images of audi­
tion •1:i.suelle is no mere logical, mathematical representa­
tion. On the contrary, it has a psychophysical validity,
that is, its elements in nature (the overtone series) and in
the soul (tone-sensation) may be proved to be realities.
Indeed the diagram, as we. saw above ( 98) 1 i� rooted in
nature. Moreover, on the mathematic�! side, the table
recently has been usc<l as a mathematical diagram for the
representation of the totality of rational numbers, having
the "paradoxical property that each of its points is a point
of accumulation." 3 And yet we have not even counted
some tonal and other properties of the diagram as, for
example, its property as a rational division-cano11.( 102)
Let us isolate the following three aspects of the dia­
gram: 1 ) The I /n and n/ 1 sector• . . . above and below
the generator tone line 1/ 1 2/2 ... n/n; 2) the field
of the pure major and minor chords which cro�s one an·
other within the squares of the first six degre
_ es, as well as
the dissonances appearing for the first time at the seventh

=Sec Table II.

3 F. \\'llismann, llltro.l11ction tu Jl1at/1r11wtica/ Tl1i11t·in9, Vienna 1936, p.
107.
• Sec Table 11.
 149

degree ( 1 /7 b flat or 7 /I d) ; 3) the ureincarnations" of

the identity rays (rays of Table II) a nd their orientation
toward the 0/0 value.
Concerning the first instance (the l/n and n/ I sector)
we may speak here from the viewpoin� of matter and
number, of a polarity of dark and light, of contraction
and expansion, of depth and height, and if we increase the
field indefinitely, of a tremendous tension and impediment,
but also of a tremendous unimpeded exJJ ans ion . In oth er
words we have here two divergent opp <"site impulses
which are conseq uently already preestablished in the orig­
inal structure of the psychophysical order of the har­
monica! system. Since the entire harmonical evolution goes
back to the generator tone value ; 1, yet is oriented to­
·

ward the emanation from the 0/0, we have here an exact

interpretation of the viewpoint presented in many my­
thologies, and religious and philosophical systems, that
even as the "light" world, so must the "dark" world dwell
as potentiality within the creative principle ( l/1 ). It will
suffice to recall the dualistic mythologies of the old reli­
gions, such as the Persian Ormuzd-Ahriman, Jacob
Boehme's teaching of the first three shaping principles of
nature-of the harsh, dark; of the warm, light ; and the
"fear" arising from counter-striving tendencies of t hes e
two principles, which then brings forth matter. ( 99) In
that connection we might also rememb er what Schelling
says in his Tlic ,/ gc.( of till' ff/odd :r. "Thus there arc two
forcible principles even in God-the outff owing, out­
spreading , self-g i ving essence, and an e q u all y eternal

1 )
Wdlallrr hy F. \I\'. . \'Oil Schelling, tran�la1t'd hy Fre<luicL: lit' Wolfe
Bolman, Jr., New York, Morningside Heights, Columbia llniversi1y Pres�,
19•2.
 150

power of selfhood, of return into self, of .being-in-self.

Both that essence and that power are original in God him­
. self". ( 100)
In the second aspect, which concerns the crossing of
major and minor chords in the senaric field (ratios 1 -
6i 1- l /6), we find that tl·,e light-and-dark principle is
here reflected in the suul by the perception of the dualism
of major and minor. These chords are not yet blemished
by dissonance, but represent a world of pure polarity.
Only with the ratio seven does there appear a foreign
step no longer belonging to the pure tone system, and
from there on the dissonances increase in number so
greatly with further development, that relative to them
the senaric values recede. The quantity of relevant exam­
ples from mythology, religion and philosophy is so great
that we must content ourselves with mentioning only: the
representation of Paradise or the Golden Age as symbol
of the closed field of the senaric chords right after the
Creation (1/1); the "six to the right and six to the left"
of religious symbolism; the representation of the Judg­
ment, where the judging power (harmonically the genera­
tor tone line going from the 0/0 over the 1/1) divides
the light world from the dark world, and so forth.
Concerning the third instance, that of the reincarnation
of the i d entity rays ( Table II), harmonica} analysis af­
fords an idea w h ic h i!. for the first time sati s fy i ng to both
hear t and mind as to why th is strange theory could arise.
All tone values recur again and again somewhere in the
harmonic system, but their surroundings are a
. lways differ­
en t . If one connects them with Jines, these identity rays
characteristically converge, not toward the demiurge
( 1/1 ), but toward the supreme spiritual principle (0/0).
 151

And herein lies, in the symbolism of harmonics, a consol­

ing certainty. In spite of being torn by the strife between·
light and dark, in spite of i:onsonance and dissonance, each
single existence-value with its reincarnations is directed
toward the divine, whence it receives its true innermost
value.
And finally, a certain harmonica} theorem, which I
should call the theorem of metaphysical remainder, can
teach us something about the problems of the perfect and
the imperfect, abo1,1t the interpretation of the negative in
the world. By consulting Table II once more, we concen­
tratt. on just three. phenomena: I) the vertical mono-
chord, drawn to the right; 2) the imaginary line going
out from the 0/01 the line limiting the monochord above
-0/0 0/1 0/2 ... 0/oo; and 3) the second to upper­
most (\v,.rtone series of the string lengths l / lc 1/2c'
1/3g' ... l/oo. The distance which these two lines mark
on the monochord is the metaphysical remainder. We
will now try to explain the meaning of this remainder
more clearly, which may be at the same time an example
of a typical harmonic-symbolic analysis. To the har­
monicist the monochord is the symbol of the realization
of the values of being. ( 101) The order of the values of
being is symbolized by our diagram. If we draw a straight
line from the 0/0 point through any field, for instance
11/I4 f flat, this line not only marks off on the monochord
string exactly 11/14 ( 11/14 above and 3/14 be low ), but
with the plucking of 11/14 we hear the tone f fiat, which
belongs to the sphere of f Oat-e. The same in analogy
holds true for each field. Let it be noted in passing that
these tone-number configurations of the diagram result in
successive harmonic divisions, whence arises their ability
152

to divide rationally, that is, to make all rational divisions

without preliminary measurement. (I 02) Now let us con­
sider the following most carefully. The connection of 0/0
with the last field of the next to uppermost line (overtone
series) cuts off 1/16 of the string, and sounds the fourth
octave c"". If I now increase the index of the field beyond
161 then naturally the monochord string also (that por­
tion stretching between the 0/1 0/2 0/3 .. . O/n
line and the generator tone line 1/1 2/2 3/3 ... n/n)
must become longer. The distance from 1/16 to the top
of the monochord however, the absolute measure of this
distance, will always remain .identical, while the relation
of this remainder to the whole monochord string be­
comes ever smaller, the more the fields of the coordinates
grow. If I now set the index of the field at infinity (0/0) 1
that is, if I assume that all possible values of existence are
realized, that the differentiation is pushed forward to the
ultimate, then the imaginary end-poin� of the uppermost
horizontal series 0/0 0/1 0/2 ... acquires the symbol
0/oo, the imaginary end-point of the second to uppermost
horizontal series 1/1 1/2 1/3 ... acquires the symbol
I/ co, and the imaginary end-point of the generator tone
line, limiting the monochord below, 1/1 2/2 3/3 ...
acquires the symbol 7J / oo. Now while the absolute dis­
tance between 0/ oo and 1/ oo remains always identical,
and while this metaphysical remainder stays identicai even
though the index, as determined by the two symbols O/oo
and I I :io, is at infinity, the remainder practically disap­
pears in respect to the monochord grown to infinite size
{co/%), so that it actually loses its "reality". The same
is valid reciprocally for the other side of the diagram.
Now, what does this mean?
 153

The meaning can be read clearly from the harmonica}

finding itself. The system of existence-values, which we
may identify with the system of world-configuration, has
temporal duration only as long as the "metaphysical re­
mainder" {the spiritual influence on the world of reality,
symbolized by the strings of the monochord) still has
some significance as a measure and a value in relation to
the world itself. If the participation with the divine is
reduced to a minimum, then the three symbols 1/oo 0/ao
and «>/oo with their reciprocals oo/l oo/O and 00 / 001
which mathematically are without content, are to the
akroatic mind a triple sign for the dissolution of the uni­
verse.
The metaphysical remainder, the indwelJing of the
absolute in the world of reality, thus tells us that when
the differentiation and complication of the wnrfd have
reached the l/oo and oo/l points in convergence and
divergence then, with the disappearance of this remainder
·the "end of the world" must come, and the great "con-
flagration", of which all mythologies speak, will begin.
And consultation of the harmonic theorems and value­
forms shows also that against this danger there is only
one remedy, seen from the human point of view: to find
again simpler attitudes and ways of living, and from
there to build anew. Today, presumably, we stand once
more before one of the decisive turning points, which al­
lows of just two alternatives: either the atom bomb as
symbol of annihilation, or the return to simple principles
and normality, both material and spiritual. The establish­
ment of universal criteria of human conduct will neces­
sitate great political and social changes. History shows
several such reversals of the course, and it is scarcely nee-
154

essary to say that such a revaluation does not mean a

reactionary retreat. On the contrary, it means returning
to simple, great, and permanent values of humanity, from
which new roads could be built into new, still unknown
territories.
We said above that the question about the "why" of
the evil of the world will perhaps never be solved and
probably will remain the final great enigma of the world.
Harmonics has no answer, nor will it ever be able to give
one. But it is one thing to avoid this question, to take it
as a matter of fact or even to belittle it, and another to
take a position toward it from our respective fields of
investigation and so to integrate the underlying problem
into our thinking and feeling as to make us fully aware
that we are dealing not with mere fancy and speculation
but with a reality which places a great responsibility upon
us. And perhaps the decisive factor of harmonica! under­
standing is this: that at the point where causality breaks
down and the question of the "why11 ceases, correspond­
ence in image-concepts enters. The concept is transformed
into an image, a prototype, a symbol. , a!'ld here we $tand
before the arche-phenomenon which a profound student
of Goethe ( 103) calls a "metaphysical safeguard", be­
fore which we can only bow in astonishment and awe.
Summing up the meaning of the harmonica} analysis of
world evil, we may say: there is a dark world not only in
the breast of man but also in the whole of nature. We
can follow this negative principle to the core of creation,
but here our wisdom ends: no God will tell us why this
was and is so. But we can and ought also to say: there is
a world of light not only in man but also in nature. And
we must have the grace to follow d�is positive principle
 155

to the base of creation and to experience its light, its

colors, its melodies and chords, in our hearts. Here the
"why" becomes senseless i here we no longer ask, nere we
listen and belong to the sound of the uni ;·�rse, here we
feel ourselves to be at one' with the Godhead which stands
outside the why, outside the yes and no; here we share in
the Unio Mystica and say with the poet Holdcrlin ( 104):

"Then is, as now, a time of song.

And here is the wand
Of song, waving downward,
For nothing is common. It awakens
The dead, those not yet imprisoned
By coarseness. There wait however
Many with shy eyes, thirsting,
To see the light. • • ."
 Notes for Table I

This diagram (drawn by G. Fueter) presents the basic

harmonic structure-the so-called "overtone series"-in ..
its double aspect as a phenomenon both physical and psy.
chical. The tone-sequence shown above sounds whenever
a wind or string instrument tuned to the tone C is set into
vibration. These tones do not have to be produced artifi­
cially i they occur naturally and in a spaced pattern. \Vhile
the first tonc-C-completes one cycle of vibration, the
other tones complete 2 3 '4 •cycles, as shown above
• •

in the row labeled Frequencies. While the entire string

vibrates as a single unit, generating the first tone C, the
other tones are generated by subdivisions of the string
length 1/2 1/3 1/4 • • as shown by the row labeled
.

S1rin9 Lengths. As may be seen from the illustration,

· string lengths and frequencies of vibration for any specific
tone stand in a reciprocal relation to each other, that i1,
they reverse, alternate with, and complete one another.
For example, when S/2 and 2/5 arc multiplied, they equal
I. The monochord at the bottom of the diagram shows
where (in terms of string length) the corresponding tones,
arc generated. (For the sake of clarity, the string lengths
corresponding to 1/9 1/11 1/13 1/14 and 1/lS are
not shown.)
 ,,,,..,
l"f.llS

,.,,..,,...,,
I• •-t1r..1ri

: : i ! ! : I I I I ;
:
I 1 : E: !' : : : :
: I
I

•
:
:
:
·
: I I
.
!
'
l
:I :
I
:I I

j\i\If j !iit£o
1 navi
 Notes for Table II

This basic harmonical diagram of Pythagorean origin

is constructed of horizontal string length ratios coming
from th e 1/1, which is the generating tone. (The word
ralio is used in harmonics in the sense of ralio11al in
mathematics, meaning the rational aspect of the tone num­
bers, such as prime numbers and proper fractions.) The
string lengths become a series of overtones of this type:

1/1 c l/2c' 1/3' ...

2/ lc'· 2/2c 2/3g . .

.

3/ l f,. 3/2f, 3/3c .. .

The vertical "row of undertones" appears automati­

cally as a product of the ratios of string lengths. The
diagram therefore consists of the crossing of overtones
and undertones, first in pure major and minor, later in
one connects tht• i d en
narrowing and faint.:r.;ntcr\'als. Ii ­

tical tonc-rnlucs (shown hen· in bold face) concerning the

C values only, alt these lines refer to a point outside the
systt:m which we, in acco r d a nce with the logic of ratios.
designate with 0/0. The same procedure is valid for all
other tone v alues as well. The other imaginary ratios of
-

the uppermost horizontal row anJ the first vertical r ow

to the left evolve wit h the same logic. Th e se "identity
rays" show on the s t r i ng of the monuchord the exact dis-
158

tances as shown in the corresponding tone r a tios. The

same is tru� for tht• sector below the generating tone
line, but here the monochord must be made correspond­
ingly longer. \Ve have here in numbers a rational dividing
method othl!rwise nor known in mathematics. Its inter­
esting tonal laws arc not within the scope of this book.
All ratios of the upper sector l/n are smaller than i
(< I ) ; all ratios of the lower sector n/ l are larger than
I ( > l). The three-number logarithms written below the
tone v a l u e� are the logarithms of the string lengths on
base 2; they represent the distribution of all tones within
one octave between c and 1000 as we hear them.
A strangely prophetic description of the spiritual con­
tent of the diagram is found in the following poem by
Friedrich Riickert, strange because Ruckert could not
have known the diagram since it was first published in the
form of the Lambdoma by A. von Thimus in 1868.0

"L1J r·ays 90 IOward the earth from 1/ie sut11

So" ,.ay goeJ from God lo each 1hi119's heart.

On this ray the thing lulll!I·' together with God,
,.·/trd 1hro119h it feels its ori9i11 from God.
No mch ray got'.C sideways fro111 thing to thi119,
Only 111t111y ro11/ 11.d11!/ /lickrri11gs.
}' 011 cc1111w1 k110-.;: tlw 1'1i119 l>)1 lhcu /lfrkt:riH9 li9h1S,
.1 dark upt1rilti11!J 't.i.·111/ td// always /JL' bc1wee11.
r OU 11111.•I tlffc'll" to God Oii \'Oltr
. own l"Q}',.
..-/ 11d 011 ;Ju thi11!]'.• r11y rc•11ir11 agai11.
The11 you_.,.,: it''-' it i.•, 1101''-'it SL'cm.c,
If.hc11 rou ro11rul/ ,,,.,. i11 ,-011ro1·d ti.•ith God."
-·· .

• H'cisluit ,/,.,. Rrn/111111111·11 (\\'i.Jom nf rhc Brahman�)., -lth edirion 1857, p.

17J.
 TABLE II

I
I

---- - - - - -4- �c;- - -- -> �

I
I
I
I
I STRJNG LENGTHS I
I

\ \
I I I
: I :0 c
v 't'

'% "'Ii
 Additions to the Text
(from Kayser's own copy)

See p. I 00, line I 5: \Vhcn it comes to the final judgment

in this matter, l ha ve made my choice, whether to think
in terms of evolution (deve lop m e nt of the universe from
the quantum "h", that is, the primeval cell) or in teleo­
logic a l terms (pur p os e fu ll y directed from spiritual
plans). Even if we admit that the world evolved from
the simpl e st forms, we still must recognize-if the meta­
phor is pe rmitt e d - tha t the "score" of th is world had
to be in e xistence first before it could be played. I coul d
not i mag in e the bricks of my house coming together all
by themselves until the house was com ple t e d . Just as non­
se n sical would be the idea that the world with its infini­
tude of fo rms could have become what it is today if the
atoms am) ce l ls had come together through mere chance
or pro b a b i l i ty :\nd what would this a d mitte d "chance and
.

probability" mean if they could have prod u c e d the whole

fu lln ess of cxistc:nce? Purely mathematical calculations
a nd their most beautiful formulac cannot help if those
n umb e rs or th e logical forms derived from the m
, , were

n ot centered first in the depths of our soul. Only thus arc

we nhlc to J e t e ct their role, not only in physical science,
hut iu "" ph<:nornena-in those of the soul as wcl\ as in
160

han11onical tone-number, which w i l l prove its fruitfulness

in the same d eg ree as future coworkers in harmonics
serve it in the right way.

Seep. 110, line 23: " c e rtain prototypes"-the author as­

serts "that this is not the resumption of, an prio,-i sys­
a

tem (H e gel , etc.). True, the harmonica! prototype is cer­

tainly " priori, but it is &lt the· same time understandable
psycl1ophysica lly''.

See p. 119, line 3: "In Indi•1, as in China, thinking is

counted as the si."<lh sense: H. Hackmann: Chinesische
Philo.•ophi(�, 1927, p. 124." B. Schwabe notes: In this con­
nection the reader might be referred to the theory of tan­
tric Yoga, particularly as presented by Arthur Avalon
(Sia John Woodroffe) in The Serpent Power, 5th Ed.
;\,ladras, 1953. The theory states that there exists a sys­
tem of six s u b tle nerve centers in the trunk and head of
the human being, called uwheels" (chakras) or "lotus
flowers". Counting from below, the first five, which are
localized along the spinal column and reach to the )cvel
of the thro a t, correspond to the five outer senses: smell,
tustc. sight, touch an<l hearing (as the most spiritual).
The sixth lo t u s between the eyebrows corresponds to the
i1111a sense or 11u11U1s1 that is, thinking which however one
,

sl1ouJ,J not translate or confuse w ith spirit.

Sc:c p. 1-t 5, line.+: The passages in JJt.·r horcudc A'/ ensch

·
and / 0111 Kla11g dt:r ff/elt mentioned in Note 97 are of
panicula r importance here. ]),.,. /,ifre11de Mc11uli1 p. 196:
"I myself canno t answer the question why the comparison
 161

of logarithms to base 2 (partial-tone coordinates) led to

the disc0\1crr of a harmonical-morphological law, and I
admit that this perhaps most important point puzzles me.
The relation between the two systems of log a r i t hms shows
without doubt that the)' ha\•e a special morphological sig­
nificance, but a complete clarification must wait for the fu­
ture."
 BIBIJIOC�RAPHY

I. Sec P. Bonaventura .\lcyer, 0.$.B.: Han11011it1.

Bcdt:utmzgsgcschich le des If/ ortcs 'L"01l Hom er bis
,-Jristoldes (Harmony. The History of its l'v1ean­
ing from Homer to .Aristotle), Ziirich, 1932
(Thesis).
· ·

2. \Verner Jaeger: Paidcia. Die Fon11m1g des gricc/J­

ischen 1\1[�nschen, • I, 2nd Ed., Berlin 1936, pp.
223-224. See also F.rich Frank: Pfo10 mu/ dfr
.wy1·1111t111JL•11 Py1l1t19on..·er ( Pl a t o and the so-called
Pythagoreans), Halle 1923. pp. I ff.
J. :\ndrcas Speiser presents a fragment of the latter
in his l\/a.oiJtlll' Stiicl.:c dcr Af t1t/Jc11w1ik (Classic
\V o r k s of :\lathcmatics), Ziirich 1925, pp. 9-11.
-f. Vitrubius: De .lrthilt'<'/11ra,* Book V1 Ch. II. 1.
5. L. B. Alberti: De re tu·difiwtoria, Book IX, Ch. 5.
• :\ '"''iliihlc: in an En&,;li:.h • ranslacion.
 163

6. Keple r: JI ar111011ia 1111mdi1 in the collected works,

Vol. VI, l\1iinich 1940. In German translation as
If'c/1/iarm.011ik1 �'Hinich l 9J9.
7. \Vindelband: Ldtrburh der Gesdiitlllc da Philo.w­
phit ( Tr eati se on the History of Philosophy),
l 935, p. 326.
8. See Kayser, .l/Jlwnd/11119e11 z11r Ek1ypil.: lwr111011i­
kafrr J//a1/or11u11 (Essays towards a typology of
harmonical value-forms), the essay on Pythagoras,
pp. 75-107,Zurich, 1938.
9. Diels: Die Fragmc111c da r orsokr,11ilar ( Frag­
ments o f the Pre-Socratic Philosophers),* Vol. I,
3rd edition, Berlin, 1912, p. 317.
10. E. Hommel: U111t•rmd111119,•11 zztr lu·bni"iuhcn
Lautlchrc ( I nve stiga tio ns into Hebrew Phondics),
Part I: Da ./ k:::;t·nt, Leipzig. 1917. ln Latin, "for­
mula" does not refer to a mathematical equation
or formula, but means figure, norm, model, stanJ­
ard.
11. Albert von Thimus: Die harmonikalt: Sy m b o li k dt:s
,l/1ert1111u (The Harmonica) Symbolism of Antiq­
uity), Cologne, 1868-76, two volumes: see Vol . i,
pp. 132 ff. See a lso Kayser's e ss a y on Thi m us in
the . / bl1t111d/1111yc�11.
12. Aristotle: �lt!taphysics, I. 5. Sec a lso :\ . Bocckh:
Philolao.< d,·.� Py1ha9orcas /,c/1re11 (The Teach­
ings of Philolaus the: Prthagcm:an), Berlin. 1Sl9.
13. Diels, op. cit., p. J 14. Sinl'c the con<."cpr o f the tonc­
number, which is so i m por t a nt for harmonics,
·makes its first appearnnc:c here, it m:iy ·be e xplai ned
briefly. Every tone sounds on the basis of a fixed
• A uilable in an Engli�h translation.
16�

wa vc length ( st r � n g lengths, or size of organ pipes;

thi s is the spatial element) and of a fixed number
of vibrations ( fr e q uenc i es mean the eqllal back­
anJ-forth mo\.·emcnt of the string or air colu mns :
this is the tempo r a l element). Thus, measurements
can be taken in t\\;O ways: 1) by meas.urernents of
t h e frequencies of string lengths, and 2) by meas­
urements of the freq ue ncies of vib ration. If we

take measurements in e i ther way, we disco\:er that

s tr ing lengths and fr e q ue nci es of vibration stand
in a recip ro c al relation to one another. If, for ex­
ample, we take a string which is tuned to c, and
allow 2/3 of that string length to vibrate, this seg­
ment of the string will generate th e tone g. If we
measure the frequency of vibration of the tone g,
\'v'C will find that the vibration-frequencies are 3/2
of the fre q uenci e s of the o riginal tone c { 1/1).
2 IJ is the recip r oca l of 3/2. A tonal nwm.bcr t here ­
fore is nothing but the number denoting either the
s tring length or the frequen cy of vibrations, to­
gether with the tone prod uced by them; in this in­
scancc the y are 2/3 g, or respectivel}' 3/2 g. By
" r cciproca P ' is meant the fact that 2/3 X 3/2 = l.
1-f. Diels, op. cit., p. 312.
15. Ibid. p. 309.
J 6. S}'rinn. in Aristotle's A1t�tap/JyJics, XlV, I, as cited
by Thirnus, l, p. 1.17.
I 7. Sc:c Kayser on Pythagoras, note 8 above.
18. Haug: If/cdisdie Rii1u/f1·age11 1111d Riilsc:/Jpriichc
( V cdic Riddles and Gnomic Sa}'ings). in "Sitzungs­
b c ric h tc dcr philos. philo s. philol . -host. Klasse d.
Ak. d. \Viss . ., lvflinich, 1875, Il, pp. 457 ff.
 165

19. Ibid. p. 487.

20. Ibid. p. 475.
2 l. Sec the new Jf/,•ltgeschirhte of J. Pirenne, Bern
1944, Vol. I.
22. See especially: \.Vindischmann's Die Phi/osophie ini
Forlga11g dcr If/ c/Jgeschiclllt, l 827-34, Vol. I.
Also see the corresponding essays in the periodical
Siuica.
23. Thimus, op. d! ., Vol. I, 3. Hauptstuck.
24. Ibid. Vol. I, pp. 46 and 48.
25. Ibid. Vol. I, pp . 50 ff., and V o l. Il, p. 43 (foot­
note).
26. See the list of the author's harmonic writings,
p. 171.
27. Here "soul" is use<l, as everywhere in harmonica)
writings, as antithesis to the terms reason (logic)
on the one hand, and to mailer (dead, lifeless exist­
ence) on the other, somewhat in the wa�1 one can
absorb a piece of music either "subjectively" (sce­
lisch), according both to its spiritual and esthetic
content, or analytically, concerning its logical ma­
terial structure.
28. Abha11dllm9c11, pp. 109-189, with nine tables.
29. C. S. \V eiss : Bt•Jrac'1111ng da Dimo1sio11.«1.:ahiilt-
11issc i11 d,�,, IIa11p1ki.frper11 tfrs Jf>hiirot•drische11
Systems 11111/ ihnm Gcgc11kifrpa11 im f'ag/ci,-/1 mil
de11 har111011isd1C11 r ahii/111i.Ht'll da Tii1u (On the
Dimensional Proportions of the tvl ain llodit!s in
the System of the Spheres as Compared with Tonal
Proportions), in Abh. dcr Akadcmic, Berlin, 1818-
19, Physik-Klasse.
30. V iktor Goldschmidt, Vbcr llt11·mcmi,· mu/ Cum-
16()

plika1io11, Berlin, S pr inge r 19011 and later works,

especially his Complikatio11 111ut Displiktllio11� Hei­
delberg, 1921.
3 l. See· Kayser's Tagcburli 'L'Om Bi1m 1a l (Binn Valley
Diary) 1 in the ,-/ blia11dlm1gen, pp. 191-269.
32. Sec Kayser's Grundriss, pp. 106-7, a·nd the Lc/Jr-
buch, 1f 42.
3.L Gn1111lris .;1 pp. l 82 ff.
.

J-J.. .-lblurnd/11ngt111 pp. 235 ff.

35. llarmo11it1 Ph111/t1r11m, pp. 228 ff.
36. See, in this connection, J. Handschin; �) Ei11 mi1-
IL'ltl/1t�rliclier Bl'itn19 z.111" Lehn: 'l.'O!l dcr ·Sphiire11-
lwr111011fr (A Medieval Contribution to the Theory
of t he Harmony of the Spheres), Ze i1 s ch ri/1 fii1·
ivlwikwi.ucnsclza/1, IX (1926-27), pp. 195ff.
b) Die A1usika11Hha111mg des· JohmmeJ Stows
( Erigt·1w) (The .l\l usical V i e ws of John Sco­
t us [Erigcna]), Dcul.\clu l"ierJcJ jakrcsuhri/1 fiir
Litaa11trwisse11sc/rn/r und Gcistcs-gesrhiclltc, V
'
( 1927), pp. 316 ff.
37. See note 6 above: also Der horend(� Ji,fcnsC"h, pp.
17 l ff., a n d the l.L'lzrb11c'1, fi41, 6.
J8. For this and what follows, sec llannouia Pla111a­
rum and its table of contents.
.19. Sec //11rmo11i11 Plaularum, p. 288; Fo.111 Kla119 da
lf"dl µp. 118-125, and D(�,. hiirt'llifr 1\/t11stlt, p.
:l 60.
-HJ. j),.,. hifr,·11,fr .i\.I,·1uch1 Tables IV and V; J blu111d-
.

lu11!/''11, rhe tt1ne s pe c tr a of Tables IV and VI II.

and the l.chrhuch, �:37,
41. /.c/1rlmd1, f.J7: Der hurcudc J\lt•11,•c/1, pp. 79 ff ..

anJ Tabll! I IL
 167

42. Der horemle �I e11sc/11 Tab le [; JI armouia Pla11Ja­

rnm.1 pp. 265, 173, 174.
43. E. v". Cyon: /),u Ohr a/J Org1111 /iir die 11w1'1.
Simie Raum 1md Zei1 (The Ear as the Organ of
the Mathematical Sens es of Space anJ Time),
Berlin, Springer, 1908.
·44. Helmholtz: l)ie Le/ire 'l.'011 den 1'011t�mpfind1111-
gc111 *6th Ed., 1913, p. 289.
45. L. Euler: Tt>11lamc11 11 o vae
· 1/u:oria1.: musiCllt.', St.
Petersburg, 173 9, p. 6.
46. ./blza11dilmgc111 pp. 56-57.
47. A. Eic h orn: Die• ,/ k11.s1ik 9ro.ut!1· Riiume 1wc/1
al1gricch Theo1·ie (The Acoustical Prope r ties
of Large Areas in the Theory of the Ancient
Greeks), Berlin, 1888; a lso Da ii kusJiJChc
Mass tab (The Acoustical B u ildin g Canon), Berlin,
1899.
48. Ei11 JI armonika/er Tcilungskanon.
49. Hannonia Plan/arum, pp. 148 ff.
SO. Ein Har111011ika/er Tci'1111gska11011.
S 1. Lehrbuch, 38.
52. Lepsius, in Appendix JI of his Dcnkmiiler, Berlin,
1849/59, Folio I, 243 ff.
53. Gnmdriss eiues SyJ/ems dt:r lianno11ika/e11 Werl­
forme.11, pp. 280 ff., anJTa b les 11 and 12.
54. K. \Vynekt:n: .·1 u/lnw da Fofm ( Form a l Struc­
ture), Frcibourg i. Br. 1903-1907, 2 vols. anJ
�ables.
55. See the illustrations from \Vynckcn in tht Gruud­
riss, Ta b le 29; a l so [.elirbuch, 38.
56. Grnnd1·iSJ1 pp. 17 I ff., 17 5 ff.
• Alao available in an En6'1ish transl11tio11.
) 6:)

57. Dt·r lzurc:ndc: !1-lc:11u/J, pp. 310 ff.; see also the
pertinent thcorc;11s in the Grwulriss.
St). See later in Chapter XIII, "The universal validity
of tonal relationships."
59. Eitz llannonika/cr Tc:iltm9Jka1101i.
60. See the appropriate chapters in Der lziirendc
Al c: 11 sr lz
•

61. Sc� tl�e closing parts of Chapter XIV, on the cos­

mological significance of the metaphysical remain­
der.
62. Hermann Friedmann: Die J//ell dcr Formc11, 2nd
Ed., l\1unich, Beck, 1930.
6.1. H e rd er : Ube1· de11 Urspr1111g der Spraclu, Preis­
schrift der. Akad. d. \Viss, Berlin, 1770.
64. M. V. Humboldt: Uber die f'cnd1iedt.!11lu:i1 de�
mcnJClzlichen Spraddnwn, Berlin 1836 (On the
Di,·ersity of Linguistic Structures) Reprint, Lam­
bert Schneider Verlag, Berlin 1935.
65. Augustine: De musira, German translation by Joh.
Perl, Srrassburg 1937.
66. J. Burckhardt: (rricrhisrlze K11/111rgL'JChirhte1 Kri)­
ners Taschenausgahe, Vol. II. p. 298.
67. Sec Kayser on the formal thinking of Paracelsus:
[)"-' For11ulc11kt�11 deJ Par·acd.ms, in the Schweizer,
Xnft"11 Paraa/JU_i Ial11"b11c"h, 1944. in which Para­
�:clsus' concept of the image= ( /Jildbeyrifl) 1s ex­
p l a i n c J.
6�. Ser Chapter XIV for more on this.
69. J·:rnst Cassirer: Di1• Rcgritf.'if orm im :llythiulu·11
Do1ko1 (The Concept in l\.1ythical Thought), in
tht: V o r t r a gc n dcr Bihl. \Varhurg. Leipzig 1922;
also his Philosophy of Symbolfr FormJ, Vol. II,
Berlin 1925.
 169

70. Cassircr: Dit: /l,:griffsform etc., pp. 22-23.

71. Ibid. p. 32.
72. Ibid. p. 32.
73. I /Jid. p. 33.
74. Ibid. p. 34.
7 S. Ibid. p. 44.
76. C. G. Jung and R. \Vilhelm: D<1s Gcht:im11is der
Go/dt:11e11 Bliite* (The Secret of the Golden
Flower). l\:IUnich, 1929, p. 16.
77. For materi•tl from the 13th century, sec the volume
.Uystisclic Dirhtu11g1 p. 57, in the collection edited
by Kayser: Der Dom, Insel-Verlag, 1925.
78. Refer to the numerical illustration of the develop­
ment of crystalline surfaces
in Viktor Gold­
schmidt's Comp/ilwtion 1111d Displikt1lio11, Heidel­
berg, 1921, p. 34, which is identical in its early
scages with the partial-tone coordinates (see
Table II at the end of this book).
79. Grnndriss, p. 269.
80. Ibid. pp. 182 ff.
81. See Ka}•ser: T"gebuch •1:0111 Binntal (Binn Valley
Diary) in the .-/blumdlu119c11, pp. 193 ff.
82. Lchrbuch,!50.
83. Sec note 6 abo\'c.
84. St•c Julius Stenzel: Xtlld 1111d (idwlt h1·i Plato 1111d
.·lristott'/es (�um her and Content in Plato and
.-\ristotll.'). B1.·rlin. Tcuhncr. I C)24. pp. Jf) ff.
85. Sec �otc 62 aho,·c: also the int ro Ju c t i on to Der
hiire11dt• Af 1·11uh.
86. Leo Shestov: ,-/u/ l l i o/J .( l/?11119t• (On Job's
Scales), Berlin, I .ambcrt SchnciJcr V crlag. l 929.
87. Karl Joc1: Da U1·Jpn1119 da .Yat11rplzilosophie
• .-hailablc in an Engli�h translation.
\ 70

dcm Gt:iste der lvlystik (The Origin of Nat­

till.\

ur�ll Philosopl-ty from the Sp,rit of l'vly sticism ) ,

Jena, DieJrichs, 1906.

88. Further, treated differently, sec Gnmd1·iss, pp.
326 ff.
89. Sec the dialog i n the LchrbuL"h, ,151.
90. In the "tone spectra'', as well as in the Tagebuch
·"1,,·om Bim1tal in the .--1 bhandlzmge11.
9 l. 7th Ed., B e rn 1945.
,

92. J. Gcbser: ,/. be11d/ih1dischc H' andlung ( Th e

Changing \Vcs:) 1 2nd Ed., Zurich bei Oprecht,
19.+5; Der g1·amma1ische Spit•gcl (The Mirror
of Grammar), Zu r ich bei Oprecht, 1944; a l so the
essay Die Drci Sphiircu (The Three Spheres) in
his translation of T. S. Eliot's play, The Fa·m,iJy
Re1111io., (Die Fa m ilienfeier ) in Oprecht's al­
manac, Fiir die Biiche1-freut1de1 1945.
93. Grzmdriss, p. 63.
94. Lchrbuclz, 13. "Quantelung,, comes from quanta:
Fixed, closed magnitudes which, like the steps of
a stai rway, whole numbers, organic cells, et c.,
exist by the mselves as prime units. The antithetical
concept to this is that of continuity.
9 5. :\I. Cantor: P' vrfrmugcu iibt:r die Geschichte der
Ala1ht'mu1ik ( Le ctu r e s on the 1-listory of l\lathe­
matics), Vol . I, 4th Ed., 1922. p. 2.16.
96. D. H ilb e r t : GrmullcigL'11 dt'r Gcomt•trie (Founda­
tions of Geometrr), 5th EJ . . 1922.
97. Sec Der hdrcndt! Aft!nHh, pp. 191 ff., and Vom
/\/,111!/ ,fr,. Jl't'/1, Fig. 8. In Der horc:ude Mensch,
all Jara reported here emir as results are fully ex­
plained.
 I7I

98. Der hurcudc Alt11st"h, the Table on page 192.

99. llarmo11ia l'/1mlt1ru1111 µµ. 256 ff., anJ the Gruud­
riss, pp. 312 ff.
l 00. Schelling: Die If/c/Ja/Ji:r (The :\gcs of the
\Vorld).* Reclam. A usg. , p. 32.
101. The 1'legcnJ" about Pythagoras anJ the mono ­

chord, p. 42 above.
l 02. Details of the divisions arc to bi: found in the
first t\\'o hooks of Ei11 har111011il.:t1/cr TL·ilungs­
ka11011 .-\lso, the caption ro Table ll of this v olu m e
.

gives som e hrid indications.

I 03. Hermann .-\ ugust in : D1111te, Guctlu', St if ta, Hase I
1944,p.44.
104. Hold erlin. Pat1110.'i, first \'ersion.

\Vorks on Harmonics bv Hans . Kavser . .

I. Orpht'us: Atorplw/ogiuhi: Fra9111c111e cincr allgc­

mcinc11 Harmonil.:. First of a ser ies . Berlin 1924.
Folio. Out of print. (This ser ies could not he con­
tinued owing to difficulties of production.)
2. Da hiJn•11tfr .\/1•11:ic/1. 1932. Lambert Schneider
\' erlag. Berlin. Out of print.
1. I'o 111 I\. Ia 11 r1 d a II' d 1. I 9 .n. \I ax � i ch ans V c rl a�.
Ziirich. Out oi' print.
4. .//Jlu111d/1111y1·11 ::.11r t:J.:rypik lwr111011ibtla Jf',.,.t­
fon111·11. 19.rn. :\la x :\id1ans Verlag. Ziirich. Ut1t
of print .
5. Gr1111dri.i :i ,.; 110 ,\ \' .i It' llU ti a l1t1r111<JllikaI01 IV t� rt-

• .hailablc: in an En�li"'h iran�la1iun.

172

formt�11. IS·3�. !\lax Nichans Verlag, Zi.irich. Out

of p r int.
6. l I a r m o 11ia P"'nlarnm. 1943. B e n no Schwabe Ver­
lag, Basel. Out of print.
7. .1 kroasis: Die Lehre 'L'Dn dt:r J-/ a rm o11i k da IV e/t.
l 946. Benno Schwabe V crlag, Basel, 2nd. ed.
"
1964.
8. Ein harmonikaler Tcihmgska11011: ..111alysc ei11er
gcometrischcu Figur im Bau/11111,�ubuch Pillard de
llo111wco11rts (13th c.). H t1 r m o n i k a /c S111dic11,
1[,•f1 I. 1946. B en n o Schwabe \' crlag, Basel;
earlier, Occident-Verlag, Ziirich.
9. Dit' Fann dc1· Geige: ,-/us dem GeJcl:::. dt�r To11e
gctlc11te1. llarmonikafr S111dien1 llcft II. 1947.
Benno Schwabe Ve rla g , Basel; earlier, Occident­
Verlag, Ziirich.
10. l.chrbuch der IIar m.o n ik ,195 0. Benno Schwabe
Ver l a g, Basel; earlier, Occident-Verlag, Zurich.
l l. Be'L·or die Engel sa ngc n : Einc harmonikale 1n­
..

tlzo/ogie. 19 53, Renno Schwabe Verlag, Basel.

12. Pacst11m1 1958. Lambert Schneider Verlag, Hei­
delberg.

Posthumous \York

13. Orphikon: Eilie harmu11ikt1fo Symbolik. Part I:

Die ff/ e/1 dcr Goller. 1\1S completed 1956; un­

published to date.

Abacus
Ab1olute1 principle of, 153
Acou1tic1, linguistic, H. Su
Harmonics
Adam u archetype, lH
Aeathuis and akrouis, S3
Aether (Zeui1), 34-
Aani, 4S
Akrouis, definitiun of, 21
Alberti, Leon BattiMa, 28, 162
Anaximander, 21
Aquinu, Thomas, 133
Archetype�, 105
.'\ rchitectu re, harmonics in a 1H"il·n1,
7S
Archive:, Kay.;cr':<, 1�11
Archytu, 28
Aristotle, 30, +2, 109, lll, 162, 161
.'\sh tree: of Germanic lriho, ll.13.
Su abo World
A:>trology: a:1 mythical thou�ht;
tc�aching of, +o
A11tronomy and harmo·niu, 59
Atom, beha,·ior of, 139
Audition .,isur.llr, S3,. 6S, 7G,
92-3, 111, 148
Index
.\11gusti11, Hermann, 18, 171
Augustine, Sr., 9+, 1611
also .-\ v a lun, .\ nhu r, 16U
Hach, IH, 1111, HO
Builar 1r-�mhra11c:, GG
Bavink, B., 133-4, H0-3
BaynH, Cary F., IOSn
Beauty, Stifter'11 h)·mn to, 71-4
Bectho,·en; 13, H, 1111. 121
Hcha \' io r, free from cau:<alil1·, ll'J.
·
Beth, J., Sln
Hucckh, .-\., IG3
Uuch111e. J ac-ult, 1�9
Hot-thius. ]'Jn
Hol111;i11, Frederick 1k \\'ulfr, Jr.,
H'Jn
Bo1a11y and har111u11ic,, 1,1
Brahman, 'J'J
H11rdd1anh, Jac-1111, 'H-;. 11.�
liur)', R. G . . 3711
Cahali>m, H2n
Cadence:, IUS; in 111u,.ic, t·ry,.1al�. S6
117, C:111u11 of ha r111011ica I di vision. 7 5:
of Pol�·L;lctc:<, 7'1
17-1-

Canh1r, l\t., 170 F reed om , prohlem of, 139

Cassirer, Ernst, 102, 109-10, lH, Friedmann, Hermann, 113, 168
135, 168 Fuetcr, Frau Sonja, l4n
Ch romosomes, 61-2 . 'e, Hn, 1S6
Fueter, Gusta\
Chthonos (earth or sp ac e ) . H
Civilization, breakdown of, ll
Galileo, Iii_.
Corr espondences: and di.-sonances,
Gayatri-mc:trnm, -lS
IH; in arts and logic, 108; in
G eb :.;e r, J., lH, 170
cultu res , 138
Gene:;is, llook of, 1-H
Cour:o:es, general, 132
G eol ogy and harmonics, S6-7
Counterpoint and ha 1111onic:;, SS
G oethe, 61-2, 67, 123, 131, 133
Creation of \\'orld, 150
Ood, Godhead, 60, 99, 100, 107,
Creuier, 99
122, 128, IH-S, 1S8
( 'rptalloi;raph�·. harmonir,. in, SC.
(joldt•n Age, 150
<.'you, E \'Oil, 611, 16t.
. Golden Section, 76
Dannreuther, Edward, 911n Gold:;chmiJt, Viktor, Sl, S6, 16S
.
l la 111c , 21 <lra ser, \\'olfgang, on Bach, a.+
lh·c;a\·, l·H, 1+7 (ir<•:.at M other, imagc:s of, 112
l >ci 1�:. 38, ·B. Sn· God,· Go dh ead
Dcmiurge, 99 Haase, R udolf, lSn, 1611
l le111ocrilu,., 2S Hackmann, H .. 161
i>hll"llCti\'l�Oe'\!', COlllc;lllporary, 16 Handschin, J., 16E ·

Dialectic, S6 Haptic, definition of, 31, 33

l>iels, 163-4 Harmonics: and acoustic11, 77; and
Dionpius the .·\ ;-eop
a gite , 108 geology, 56-7; and meuu re and
l>is:.;onancc:;. Srr Coni'onances valu e, 1 H; and meditation, 127;
lJi\'inity, implication of, lSl and my thology, 112; ·and objec­
Dua l itie s. Srr Polarities th•it)', 130 i a nd philosophy, 97;
Durcr, A lh re cht , 73, 15, 80-2, H and prob a bil iry, 159; and the
pi;yche, 1_.7; and p11ychology1 111-
Ear, >< tructu re of, 66-IJ
2; and rc:gc:11erarion, 11_.; and
Education, ea r ly Gred;. 27
religion, 101; and :;ex, 64-; and
Eichorn.:\., 7S, 77. lt.7
1011c-1111111lil·r. 163-_.; and ·the
l ' liu1 , T. � .. 1711
Trinit\', 1 1.17 ; al4 sdence, 102; a�
En ha rn1u11i1·s 1ldi11l·d. �:) .
1hc:11rr of corrl'�poudc:nce"• I H,
En,.uph of Cahab, IJIJ
H3; .·\ sian, _.6; corrcllpondcnces
Ero,., 121, HI
·

in , 106; d c: fin c: d . 26; founded on

Euditl, j'>n. �'l
i111cr\'3b, 135-6; hii;tor ic al work
Euh·r, l.t"onarJ, 167: on tune ratiu�,
0111 _.9; in animal world, 6S-6; in
{,I/
astronomy, 59; in hotany, 61; in
E\"il, l'11ii.;111a of, 1 H; o rigin of, H2
counterpoint, BS; in geology , S6-
Eye, h a rmoni c s of, 70
7; in religion and mytho logy, 99;
Exis1cntialis111, 121
of crystalii, S6; of eye, 70; re­
Fuot, 1;111uan, ai; 11ni1 of mea .. ure, 79 generating power of, 32; uni­
Frank, Erich, I 112 \•cr�ali1y of, 133-4; vatuc-form:i
 175

in, 97, 110. Su Canon, and En­ Kepler, Johannei11 1 1, 13, 211 '*0,
harmonica .i.s, 10-l, 109, 163; and harmo11ic111
Harmony, definition of, -l2 59; Third Law of, 28, H, 59.
Harps, Egyptian and Habylonian,
.
Su Harm11nie11
46 Knowledge and the heart, H I
Haug, lH Kronoll (time), H
Harward, J., 37n Kun1t, J ., 137n
Haydn, 12 Kylon, enemy of Pythagoreans, 35
Heart, role of in a rt, H
Hegel, 5611, 160; mylitici11m in, 121
. Lam hdom a , 13, 95, 107, I SB. Su
Pythagoru, Table of. Stt alllo
Heisenberg, uncertainty principle
Tahula Prahagorica
of, lH, U9
l.ep11i11�. 73, 78-9, 167
llclmhultz, 61-9, 167
H erde r, J. G., 93, 168 Leihni1z, U, 97-1!, 131, 133, Hl-4;
mysticism in, 121
Hcrodotu1, '46
Leonardo da Vinci, 711-80, U-2
Hilbert, D., 170
Li nn aeu s, 63-4
Holdcrlin, 96, 127, ISS, 171
f.11�0�. in Grt•rk rhought, 93-4
Homer, 162
l.o�u>, Juhanniru:, 99
Homme:!, Eberhard, 39, 9-4, 1113
Lucif.:r, H7
Honnecourt, Villard de, 52
Hood, Mantle, l 37n Matht:matic11: formulu in, HO; Cic­
Hum:111i1r1 lack of today, 117 iitalt, 91-2; P)'thagureau, 27
Humboldt, M. v., 93, 168 Meai1ure and value, 117; defined,
2S
I. Ching, 98 Media fur m31111 suggestion, 125
lambliculi, H, -l0-1, 43, -l7 Meyer, P. Bonaventura, 162
Identity ray1, 157 Mind, akroatic factor in, 93
Imhof, Hana, ll Monochord, 29, '*4, 49-SO, 137, 151-
lndh·idual, threat to the, 125 3, 156, 157-8; and botany, 62; 111
Intervals, planetary, 143; tonal, 135. hasic iHtrument, 87; form of, 39
Su Harmonics MuKtl, j acoh, U
Mui1ic: and harmo 11 ic11, &.\; con�u­
Jacgc�, V\'crncr, 162 nancl.' and di 11i1unancr in, I 00;
Jori, Karl, 169 il11alii1111 in, I SU; f rc1111e11cir> in,
Ju1lj!t111•111, La�r. I SO I SG; lmliiln anJ Chinr�r llu:ur)"
Jung, C. G., 102, lOS, 1611 of, .\6.; lac k uf fe eliu � in, 86;
juri11prudencc, Sulonic, 27 lawi1 uf, 116; major and min o r ,

!IS; 111udula1iu11 in, 100; 1111111hcr

Kaut, H, I 00, 111 ; my-lici�m in, in, 911; Pytha�orrau, 27; 1'c­
121 narium in, l SO
Katriner, on Hach, U Mysaici�m: 13; in Hegel, Kant,
Kayser, Hans, 163, 16S-6, 168-70; Lcihnit :t. , Plotinui;, SchcllinK, 121;
and mullic, IS; and Rymbolism, nluc of t ud a ) , 111-2, 121
'

IS; hirth and education, 12-3;

marria1e, 1-l; publication:1 of, 1'*, ?l:a1urt:: akroatic faclor in, 93; and
17-B; works by, 171-2 mu,.ic, 97; three realmi1 of, 6S-4
 \16

Neo-Platonist�, 11 Tabula, Pythagorica

N ew ton , 48, SS Pythagoreans, 11, 137, 162. Set
Nicomachus, 47 Ky Ion
Nirvana,99 '?ythagorism: defined� 29-30; quali­
tative side of, 30; quantitative
Ormuzd-Ahriman, 149 side of, 31; similarities of archaic
Orphics, world egg of, 103 · sources of, 36
Otto,R., Bl
Quanta, law of harmonica), 134,
Paesrum, Kayscr's study of, J8 l37-8
Painting, abstract, 83
Paracelsus, 168 Reciprocity of ear and eye, 70-1
Paradise, 100-1, ISO; tree of, 109 Redeemer images, 100-1,107
Pascal, !ikepticism of,117 Regeneration of h u manity,2+-5, 1S3
Paul, St., 13 l, llln, 141 Reincarnation, 34,46, 101; of iden-
Perl, j., 168 tity rays,1SO
Pherekydes, H Renai11Sance1 31, 104
Phidias,79 Rhythm and tone, 9S-6
Phi\olaus, 38, 4-2, 163 Rigveda,lndian,45
Phil osophy, 97 Ruckert, Friedrich, 1S8
Phonetics, Syrian and Arabian, 40
Pirenne, J., 165 Scale, twelve-tone, 86
Pirkheimer, Willibald, 81 Scotus,john (Erigena). 166
Planets: and music, 145-6; veloci- Sche lling, F. W. J. v., 149, 149n, 171
ties of, .S9 Schieu, Ernst, acoustician, 77
Planetoid�, 146 Schope nhauer , Arthur, 34, 97, 98n;
Plants, laws of forms,62 mystici s m in, 121
Plato, 28, 15-7, 48, 56 n, HO, 162, Schubert, 13
169; and theology, 38; mysticism Schwabe, B.,160
in, 121; theory of k now l edge of , Schwabe, Julius, 19
31 Senarium,79; defined,46
Plotinus, mysticism in , 121 Senses, ordering of, 122
Polarities, H8-9 Sensitivity, interval, 136
Polykletes, 79 Snenth Letter of Plato, 37
Polykrates, 33 Sex: and Harmonics, 64
Proportions: acou sti ca l and spatial, Sexuality, first seen in plants,6+-S
18; laws of, 81-2; of human Sextus Empiricus, 98
body,80 Shakespeare, 22
Psyche, prototypes in, 68 Shestov, Leo, 109; skepticism of, 117
Psychology, depth, 112 Socrates , 120
Ptolemaeus, Cl a udius , 28,48 Societie s , esoteric, 3 8
Pythagoras, 13, 21, 29, 163-4; and Society, Pythagorean, H
measure, 26; and value, 26; Solitude, fear of, 12S
death of, 3S; in Egypt, 46; life Soul: akroatic factor in, 93; vs.
of, 33-5; legend of monochord reason and matter, 165
of, 171; teachings of, 35. Su Space-time, 104
 177

Spectrum, laws of, S4-S Totemism, 103

Spheres, harmony of, SS-9 Trinity, 106; in crystallo1rapby,
Speiaer, Andreas, 162 music, painting, 11�ulpture, dialcc·
Stenzel, Julius, 169 tic, 108; mystiq ue of, 101 i taught
Stifter, Adalbert, 73 by Pythagoras, 34; \heorem of,
Symbol of annihilation, 153 101
Symbolism: Christian, 107; har- Trishtubh-metrum, 4S
monic, 38, 48, H; scientific and
religious, 38; of tone• and num­ Uncertainty, principle of, 1 H, 139
bers, 46 Unconscfous, collective, 102, lOS
Symmetries, 84 Unity of na tu ral law, 10�
Syrian, in Aristotle, 164 Universe, h a rmony of, 144

Table, Pythagorean, 39-42 Value defined, 25

Tabul� Pythagorica. Su Table
Tat trwarn asi, 60, 130
Technology; domination of, 113;
uncontrolled, 30
Thalca, 34-
Theology, in ma thema t ics, 43
Theorem: of metaphysical remain-
der, lSl; Pythagorean, 34
Theorems: harmonic, S2; solved by
harmonica, 36
Theorists of music, ancient, 137
Theory of aspects, astrological, 109
Thinking: as sixth sense, 160;
mythical, 109
Third Law of Kepler, 28
Thimus, Albert v., 11, 13, 37, 40,
44, 47 8, 51, 158, 163-4, 16S
-
Villard, 75
Violin, and tonal law, 89-90
Vitruviu1, 28, 48, 75, 80, 162
Wagner, on Beethoven, 98n
Waismann, F., 148n
Weiss, C. S., S6, 165
Wi i bel m, Richard, 105, lOSn, 168
Windelband, 163
Windischmann, 165
Wisdom teaching, 45, 47
Woodroffe, Sir J ohn, 160
World: ash tree, 106, 109; egg, 106;
end of, 153; Pythagorean view
of, 27
Wyneken, K., 73, 82, 167

Thought as a sense, 120, 141 Yoga, 160

Tragedy, Greek, 95
Tolerance, p rinciple of, 129 Zuiiis, 109; and numl>cr seven, 103