Thursday February 2, 2023
– Gibbous Moon Phase – trust, analyze, prepare, digest, alchemy
– Moon in CANCER –
– Best Days (from the Farmer’s Almanac) – Feb 2nd – Dig Holes, Get Married, Hatch Eggs, Mow to Increase Growth, Start Diet to Gain Weight, Bake, Wax Floors, Cut Firewood, Cut Hair to Increase Growth
– Planting Calendar (from the Farmer’s Almanac) – Feb 1st – 3rd – Plant seedbeds and flower gardens. Fine for planting beans, tomatoes, corn, cotton, cucumbers, peppers, melons, and other aboveground crops where climate allows.
– Aspect of the Aeon Sophia: (Wisdom): – Matangi – Goddess of the Wind
– Aspect of the Aeon Thelete: (Will/Desire): Seth – God of the North, God of Enlightenment
– Sabian Symbol for the Solar-Lunar Month – New Moon in Aquarius SUN: – SUN/MOON – 03 AQUARIUS: an unexpected thunderstorm (& EARTH: – 03 LEO: an epidemic of mumps)
– Sabian Symbol for the Solar-Lunar Year: –“a flock of wild geese”
SUN – 14 AQUARIUS: a train entering a tunnel
EARTH – 14 LEO: cherub-like, a human soul whispers, seeking to manifest
Discovery at a Catholic Funeral
While listening to the Homily at my neighbor’s funeral Mass, I actually heard something in his message that hit a truly significant chord.
The Priest, a young one from a neighboring parish who I guess drew the short staw and was “chosen” to preside over this service, let something slip.
I have seen this kind of thing in younger clergy. Being young and not having a lot of experience to draw from, they will resort to lecturing on deep subjects learned in seminary. And in this case it was something interesting and relevant to me. And unbeknownst to him, it revealed a glimps of one of those Catholic secrets that They are so careful about keeping.
This, he probably thought was innocent. After expounding on all he knew obout my neighbor’s very full 105 year life (which he learned about in the eulogies he had just heard), he started talking about, of all things, music. And specifically how the Church chose certain musical pieces for different occasions based on the the Key. And that Each had a specific mood or tone that could compliment a message. He talked more about their high chants and a lot of stuff I really wasn’t paying attention to.
But here is where I got really interested. It is my assertion that the Catholics (more than most other religious organizations) use linguistic sounds and patterns to embed messages. This could mean something. And I am determined to uncover it.
Down the Rabbit Hole
That was last week and I have not been able to get it out of my head since.
For starters, please understand something abut my musical background. I play a number of musical instruments . . . the CD Player, the radio, Record player and Cassette player. Thanks to technology, I am also proficient at Youtube, Pandora and Sirius XM radio. My 2 piano lessons when I was 8 years old taught me how to find middle C. I taught myself how to play Chopsticks, Love Me Tender and Scarborough Faire in my preferred 2 fingered playing style. My drum lessons taught me how to do a buzz roll and paradiddle. Which is all to say I know absolutely nothing.
So armed with my newfound information about the inner workings of Catholics and mind control with music, I wanted to learn more. However, Google was not very helpful Which meant that I really understood so little about this subject (Despite what the young priet let slip), or that what I was searching about was so secret that the only people who know about it are the Priests and Vatical librarians themselves.
A deeper dive into this, however revealed some of what I wanted to learn. Not the Catholic stuff however. That seems still locked in the crypts at the Vatican.
I found this article online which is part of a music theory course from Westerm Michigan University (which may mean this is all common knowledge and I am just an ignoramous, but who is keeping track of that).
Affective Musical Key Characteristics
The association of musical keys with specific emotional or qualitative characteristic was fairly common prior to the 20th century. It was part of the shared cultural experience of those who made, performed and listened to music. When Mozart or Beethoven or Schubert wrote a piece in a Ab major, for example, they were well aware of this was the ‘key of the grave’ and knew that many in their audiences were as well. We lose a part of the meaning of their music if we are ignorant of their affective choices. Although these characteristics were, of course, subjective, it was possible to conceive of each key as unique because each key actually sounded distinct within unequal temperaments. When equal temperament became the dominant tuning after 1917, the aural quality of every key became the same, and therefore these affective characteristics are mostly lost to us. (See Piano’s Ivory Cage) One of the most influential descriptions of characteristics shared in German-speaking cultures in the late 18th and early 19th century was from from Christian Schubart’s Ideen zu einer Aesthetik der Tonkunst (1806):
The article goes on to list many musical Keys and what they mean. I have them listed at the end of this article. And I encourage you to take a look afterwards. But I wanted to create a little example for everyone. I chose a number of songs that you all may know off the top of my head. I identified the key they were written in (a simple process of Googling the sheet music for each and finding the key in which it was performed).
Examples:
Ozzy Osborne – Crazy Train – F# Minor – A gloomy key: it tugs at passion as a dog biting a dress. Resentment and discontent are its language.
Toad the Wet Sprocket – Walk on the Ocean – F# Major – Triumph over difficulty, free sigh of relief utered when hurdles are surmounted; echo of a soul which has fiercely struggled and finally conquered lies in all uses of this key.
Tom Petty – Runnin Down a Dream – E Major – Noisy shouts of joy, laughing pleasure and not yet complete, full delight lies in E Major.
Tom Petty – The Waiting – D Major – The key of triumph, of Hallejuahs, of war-cries, of victory-rejoicing. Thus, the inviting symphonies, the marches, holiday songs and heaven-rejoicing choruses are set in this key.
Led Zeppelin – Stairway to Heaven – A Minor – Pious womanliness and tenderness of character.
Bob Marley – 3 Little Birds – A Major – This key includes declarations of innocent love, satisfaction with one’s state of affairs; hope of seeing one’s beloved again when parting; youthful cheerfulness and trust in God.
Kate Bush – Running Up That Hill – C Minor – Declaration of love and at the same time the lament of unhappy love. All languishing, longing, sighing of the love-sick soul lies in this key.
I chose these songs randomly off the top of my head. I wanted to see if the moods and emotions of the keys matched the songs of today.
Now I ask myself whether all of this is common knowledge among musicians today. Or in the moment, while composing, musicians can simply feel the vibe. Are they drawn to the Key as they are expressing the emotion?
Consider also another genre, that of Soundtracks. Often these are developed by Classical Composers. Are they also chosing a key to impart an emotion in a movie?
This brings us back to Religion and my young Catholic Preist. Was he admitting they are using music to support an emotion or an energy in their worship practices?
Now understand. I am not Catholic. I grew up Episcopalian. Which means every word and incantation was from the same prayerbook. And up until they denied communion to any non-Catholic, you might not have known the difference – except the Episcopal priest would not have shut up and you could probably guess that he or she was or had been married at least once, unlike the catholic Priest where such humanity is forbidden.
But it is with these somewhat ancient practices that we can still see the fingerprints of underlying mind control. For so long it was in requiring all to be performed in Latin. But still now in the music.
Take some time to compare some of your own favorite songe to the Musical characteristcs key below. It is enlightening.
Affective Musical Key Characteristics
C Major
Completely Pure. Its character is: innocence, simplicity, naïvety, children’s talk.
C Minor
Declaration of love and at the same time the lament of unhappy love. All languishing, longing, sighing of the love-sick soul lies in this key.
D♭ Major
A leering key, degenerating into grief and rapture. It cannot laugh, but it can smile; it cannot howl, but it can at least grimace its crying.–Consequently only unusual characters and feelings can be brought out in this key.
C# Minor
Penitential lamentation, intimate conversation with God, the friend and help-meet of life; sighs of disappointed friendship and love lie in its radius.
D Major
The key of triumph, of Hallejuahs, of war-cries, of victory-rejoicing. Thus, the inviting symphonies, the marches, holiday songs and heaven-rejoicing choruses are set in this key.
D Minor
Melancholy womanliness, the spleen and humours brood.
E♭ Major
The key of love, of devotion, of intimate conversation with God.
D# Minor
Feelings of the anxiety of the soul’s deepest distress, of brooding despair, of blackest depresssion, of the most gloomy condition of the soul. Every fear, every hesitation of the shuddering heart, breathes out of horrible D# minor. If ghosts could speak, their speech would approximate this key.
E Major
Noisy shouts of joy, laughing pleasure and not yet complete, full delight lies in E Major.
E minor
Naïve, womanly innocent declaration of love, lament without grumbling; sighs accompanied by few tears; this key speaks of the imminent hope of resolving in the pure happiness of C major.
F Major
Complaisance & Calm.
F Minor
Deep depression, funereal lament, groans of misery and longing for the grave.
F# Major
Triumph over difficulty, free sigh of relief utered when hurdles are surmounted; echo of a soul which has fiercely struggled and finally conquered lies in all uses of this key.
F# Minor
A gloomy key: it tugs at passion as a dog biting a dress. Resentment and discontent are its language.
G Major
Everything rustic, idyllic and lyrical, every calm and satisfied passion, every tender gratitude for true friendship and faithful love,–in a word every gentle and peaceful emotion of the heart is correctly expressed by this key.
G Minor
Discontent, uneasiness, worry about a failed scheme; bad-tempered gnashing of teeth; in a word: resentment and dislike.
A♭ Major
Key of the grave. Death, grave, putrefaction, judgment, eternity lie in its radius.
A♭ Minor
Grumbler, heart squeezed until it suffocates; wailing lament, difficult struggle; in a word, the color of this key is everything struggling with difficulty.
A Major
This key includes declarations of innocent love, satisfaction with one’s state of affairs; hope of seeing one’s beloved again when parting; youthful cheerfulness and trust in God.
A minor
Pious womanliness and tenderness of character.
B♭ Major
Cheerful love, clear conscience, hope aspiration for a better world.
B♭ minor
A quaint creature, often dressed in the garment of night. It is somewhat surly and very seldom takes on a pleasant countenance. Mocking God and the world; discontented with itself and with everything; preparation for suicide sounds in this key.
B Major
Strongly coloured, announcing wild passions, composed from the most glaring coulors. Anger, rage, jealousy, fury, despair and every burden of the heart lies in its sphere.
B Minor
This is as it were the key of patience, of calm awaiting ones’s fate and of submission to divine dispensation.
Translated by Rita Steblin in A History of Key Characteristics in the 18th and Early 19th Centuries. UMI Research Press (1983).