A New Revelation of Harmony

by Phil Geiger

The Urantia Papers tell us that "Highest beauty consists in the panorama of *the unification of the variations which have been born of that pre existent harmonious reality*." [56:10:4; 647, emphasis mine]

I believe it is in the laws of harmony that we will find the true Philosopher's Stone, the cosmic glue that enables us to re-assemble the time/space variations of that beauteous preexistent harmony of the Father Infinite.

The Urantia Papers use the word harmony and its derivatives - one is tempted to say its harmonic forms - some 144 times. The Revelators use it as a metaphor on a number of levels:

*The Physical, as in "the exquisite spiritual harmony of the central creation" in which the forces of physical and spiritual gravity are perfectly equalized [7:1:2; 83];

*The Conceptual, as seen in its definition of fairness as "justice in harmony with mercy" [10:6:3; 114]; and

*The Relational, describing cooperation among beings of diverse orders. Said the master to the apostles:

"Your apostolic harmony must grow out of the fact that the spirit hope of each of you is identical in origin, nature, and destiny." [145:5:1; 1591]

This latter expression of harmony finds its ultimate embodiment in a group of Tertiary Supernaphim known as The Harmony Supervisors - those grand ushers of Havona charged with insuring that the great confluence of the ascendent pilgrims of time and the resident pilgrims of eternity co exist in a perfectly frictionless environment. [26:3:4; 289]

And even in the courtesy colonies of the Local Universes, down to the levels of the Local Systems we find another group of Central Universe citizens involved in the service of harmony. Known as The Celestial Artisans, they have as one of their seven major subdivisions a group called The Harmony Workers, whose job it is to help harmonize truth, beauty, and goodness into the life experience of the artisan, the scientist, and the philosopher. [44:7]

"Beauty, rhythm, and harmony are intellectually associated and spiritually akin. Truth, fact, and relationship are intellectually inseparable and associated with the philosophic concepts of beauty.[44:7; 445]"

One of the major studies of the morontia career is harmony, because of its ability to communicate spiritual code:

"Harmony, the music of the seven levels of melodious association, is the one universal code of spirit communication. Music, such as Urantia mortals understand, attains its highest expression in the schools of Jerusem, the system headquarters, where semi-material beings are taught the harmonies of sound." [44:1:4; 500]

The Harmony Workers go about their work instructing us on Jerusem in typical artist's fashion, not by 'telling, but by 'showing'; by "the manipulation and organization of specialized forces and energies which are present in the spiritual world...over one hundred thousand different modes of sound, color, and energy manipulation, techniques analogous to the human employment of musical instruments. " [44:1:3; 500].

It is apparent that there is more than just social metaphor at work in the UP's teaching about harmony. That there are fundamental principles of physics, reflecting the very structure of the Grand Universe and the Supreme Being enfolded in the laws of harmony. The laws of wave mechanics, resonance, proportion, of relationships in general, are derived from the structure, pattern, and symmetry of cosmic reality:

"The Supreme *is* the beauty of physical harmony [117:1:1;1278].

"And the endless throbbing of the material Paradise heart of the infinite cosmos beats in harmony with the unfathomable pattern and the unsearchable plan of the Infinite Energizer, the First Source and Center" [104:4:16; 1149]

Indeed, it was Johannes Kepler's lifelong study of the ancient science of "world harmony", originating with Pythagoras in the 5th Century B.C. and based upon the musical intervals of a vibrating string, that enabled Kepler to deduce the orbit of the planets nearly 400 years ago. His mathematical proofs for same are given in his book Harmonices Mundi, Five Books on World Harmony. Perhaps he was an example of that one in a thousand mortals referred to in the following quote:

"If Adam and Eve had only survived, then would you have had music in reality; but the gift of harmony, so large in their natures, has been so diluted by strains of unmusical tendencies that only once in a thousand mortal lives is there any great appreciation of harmonics." [44:1:8; 500]

This passage is familiar to thousands of Urantia Book readers, for its continues with the following qualified prophecy:

"But be not discouraged; some day a real musician may appear on Urantia, and whole peoples will be enthralled by the magnificent strains of his melodies. One such human being could forever change the course of a whole nation, even the entire civilized world. It is literally true, "melody has power a whole world to transform." Forever, music will remain the universal language of men, angels, and spirits. Harmony is the speech of Havona."[ibid]

The most detailed description of harmony as an energetic function is found in the section on the Celestial Musicians, where we read that.

"There is even a material range of beautiful sound unrecognized by the human sense of hearing, not to mention the inconceivable scope of morontia and spirit harmony. Spirit melodies are not material sound waves but spirit pulsations received by the spirits of celestial personalities...I have seen millions of enraptured beings held in sublime ecstasy while the melody of the realm rolled in upon the spirit energy of the celestial circuits."

What follows is a description of 7 categories of spirit forces that utilize the cosmic laws of harmony. First: [44:1:; 500]

"1. Spiritual sound--spirit current interruptions."

Interruption is another way of saying - interval. Intervals are the mathematical relationships of one tone to another, which is how one creates the individual notes of a given scale. If rhythm can be described as intervals of time, than harmony can described as intervals of space.

"2. Spiritual light--the control and intensification of the light of the morontia and spiritual realms."

Think of the aurora borealis would ripple in colored sheets of light across the night skies, orchestrated by the pulsations of the great solar conductor some 95 million miles away.

"3. Energy impingements--melody produced by the skillful management of the morontia and spirit energies."

The distinction between this category and the first one above seems to be the addition of morontia tones to spiritual tones.

"4. Color symphonies--melody of morontia color tones; this ranks among the highest accomplishments of the celestial musicians."

That should prove to be interesting, since with our current bodies we can hear some 10 octaves of sound, but we can only see 1 octave of light. And yet within that one octave of visible light we can perceive up to 16 million shades, or shall we say, *overtones* of light. Once encircuited with our new morontia mind mechanism with its extended range of perceptual faculties, our appreciation of the laws of harmony will increase dramatically.

"5. Harmony of associated spirits--the very arrangement and association of different orders of morontia and spirit beings produce majestic melodies."

Now isn't that a choreographers dream come true! By the simple placement of spiritual being in relationship to each other, a resonance field is established, from which peal forth "majestic melodies."

"6. Melody of thought--the thinking of spiritual thoughts can be so perfected as to burst forth in the melodies of Havona."

"7. The music of space--by proper attunement the melodies of other spheres can be picked up on the universe broadcast circuits."

Otherwise known as the Music of the Spheres. In our own solar system of Monmatia, transposing from the relative velocities in various parts of their different orbits, Kepler determined that little Mercury's tone is a soprano, Venus a contralto, Mars a falsetto tenor, and the giants Jupiter and Saturn both deeply base.

"There is a vastness of range and soul of expression, as well as a grandeur of execution, associated with the melody of the spheres, that are wholly beyond human comprehension." [44:1:1]

Other groups of The Celestial Artisans involved with the laws of harmony include The Thought Recorders , among them the Promoters of Oratory.

"The oratory of the spirit world is one of the rare treats which await you who have heard only the crude and stumbling orations of Urantia. There is harmony of music and euphony of expression in the oration of Salvington and Edentia which are inspiring beyond description." [44:4:7; 503]

Another group of Thought Recorders is called the Rhythm Recorders:

"Urantians would undoubtedly call these artisans poets...Rhythm is less exhausting to both morontia and spirit beings, and so an effort is frequently made to increase efficiency, as well as to augment pleasure, by executing numerous function in rhythmic form." [44:4:11; 504]

Augmentation of pleasure is the job of the Joys of Existence, the celestial facilitators of the Cosmic Pleasure Principle.

"By nature these beings are reflectively attuned to the superaphic harmony supervisors above and to certain of the seraphim below...Their principal activities are directed toward promoting reactions of joy among the various orders of the angelic hosts and the lower will creatures...seeking to upstep the pleasure reactions of the realms while trying to improve the humor taste, to develop a superhumor among mortals and angels. [28:5:16; 312]

Returning to the idea that harmony is an interval of space, I want to conclude with a brief explanation of what is called the harmonic overtone series, because I believe it is paradigmatic of the cosmic nature of the laws of harmony. The harmonic overtone series is the only musical scale produced from the successive progression of whole number quanta. In other words, each tone in the scale is produced by beginning with a given pitch, say Middle C vibrating at 256 cps, and then successively multiplying by 2, 3, 4, 5 etc. And for those of you who like to run thought experiments about how the ultimaton, as the smallest particle of matter, can have as its nucleus the Isle of Paradise, it should be noted that there is another way of generating the overtone series. Instead of multiplying by whole numbers, the same results can be produced by dividing by their reciprocals. For instance, take a fixed string length, or even a given wavelength of energy, keep subdividing it by 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/5, etc. and you will similarly produce the overtone series unto Infinity. As above, so below.

It just so happens that the human voice box is a musical instrument itself, which contains its own natural resonant frequencies, called formants. It consists of, among other things, a 7 inch long flute-like tube connected to the diaphragm at one end, and to reedlike devices known as lips on the other; taut vibrating stringlike muscles known as vocal chords,etc. And it is designed by the Life Carriers in such a way that its natural resonant frequencies just happen to *amplify* each note in the harmonic overtone scale. One might venture to say that we were *designed* for overtone chanting. Chanting is of course used in meditation and worship in religions all over the world. Recall that "in order to effect deep spiritual transformations in the higher recesses of the superconsciousness...[the Divine Adjuster adjusts] "the forces and energies of mind more fully...to the key of contactual tones of the spiritual level of the present and the future. "[109:5:1; 1199]

I'll now demonstrate an example of harmonic overtone chanting. I will sustain one note, or pitch, and then by manipulating the voice box, allow its natural resonant frequencies to amplify the particular notes of the overtone scale. Listen closely for the additional tones, usually heard as a flutelike series of notes floating above the fundamental tone. After that, we will segue into the meditation segment of our worship assembly, and listen to a 7 minute tape, on which a harmony of voices will be chanting "Halleluya", using the principles of overtone chanting.

After that, we will share a few more quotes from the Urantia Papers on harmony.

[Demonstration]

[Roll tape, selection from 'Harmonic Meetings", David Hykes and the Harmonic Choir]

Other Quotes On Harmony From the Urantia Papers

"Harmony is the keynote of the central universe" [27:4:2; 301]

"A social group of human beings in co-ordinated working harmony stands for a force far greater than the simple sum of its parts." [133:5:6; 1477]

"Such advanced planets are indeed poems of harmony, pictures of the beauty of achieved goodness attained through the pursuit of cosmic truth." [118:10:15; 1306]

"The modern age will refuse to accept a religion which is inconsistent with facts and out of harmony with its highest conceptions of truth, beauty, and goodness. The hour is striking for a rediscovery of the true and original foundations of present-day distorted and compromised Christianity--the real life and teachings of Jesus." [195:9:5; 2083]

"It is to the mind of perfect poise, housed in a body of clean habits, stabilized neural energies, and balanced chemical function when the physical, mental, and spiritual powers are in *triune harmony* of development that a maximum of light and truth can be imparted with a minimum of temporal danger or risk to the real welfare of such a being." [110:6:4; 1209]

"Righteousness strikes the harmony chords of truth, and the melody vibrates throughout the cosmos, even to the recognition of the Infinite." [48:7:12; 556]

"Religion is the spiritual rhythm of the soul in time-space harmony with the higher and eternal melody measurements of Infinity." [195:7:20; 2080]