The Saturn
Presentation of this planet and its moons, including ring and creatures
- Chapter 29 -
Harmony of the celestial bodies. Examples of the art of music. The secrets of the teachings of sound and creation. Correspondence of the wild animals on Saturn and on Earth.
You already know that we have only described those animals in detail which are extraordinary in respect to their species. From what has been disclosed thus far you have learned about the peculiar animals which are indigenous to this planet. When these animals were described, you must have noticed that most were of such a kind that, as a whole, no animal on earth or on any other planet could be compared with them.
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However, there exists a perpetual harmony in everything between one planer and another, without which two celestial bodies cannot exist, even if they are far removed from each other. To understand this properly, I must point out to you that harmony can only occur where one and the same cause brings forth the effect.
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For example, if you were to tighten a string over a flat board and pull the string, it would at all times give you a particular high or low tone. Should you tighten the string more, then the sound would become more intense or, as you would express it, the tone will be higher. However, the less the string is tightened, the lower the tone. What is here the cause of this sonorous effect? You will probably find or specify no other cause than the board and the string which is tightened over it. As often as you renew the cause, that is how often you will have the same effect. The changes, in as far as the sound produced is low or high, make absolutely no difference, because a sound remains a sound, regardless of whether it is high or low. You might ask: What actually causes the sound -is it the string or the flat board? And I will tell you: It is neither the board by itself nor the string by itself, but both objects together. The flat board as a coherent whole has all conceivable forms for the formation of a tone at all times in readiness. The vibrating string above the board calls forth these forms in a manner distinguishable from one another. Therefore the flat board contains all conceivable forms of sound. The string which is stretched over it is there to awaken these forms of sound in order to transfer them into a perceptible appearance. For this to occur there must exist an undeniable harmony between the flat board and the string.
4
If you would consider the air as a means of forming sound, then it must be shown, when bringing forth any kind of effect, that it is impossible for more than two polar causes to be brought forth into a reciprocal connection. The means, however, cannot be considered a cause, but only a path by which the effect of the two polarities is brought forth to appear.
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For example, observe the magnetic fluidum! Can the magnetic fluidum, when it is absorbed by an iron rod, only be found polarly? Or, rather, is it polarly freely effective within itself throughout the entire infinity? Therefore an iron rod is only the path upon which this fluidum can express itself tangibly to your senses. It would be an impossibility to consider the iron rod as that which brings forth the magnetic fluidum itself.
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Or would you say that the air and the ether between a sun and a planet are the source of light? They are no more than the path upon which the light reaches a planet while emanating from a sun, provided that the planet is structured and is capable of absorbing the light that overcomes it.
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Therefore, we shall not consider the air in this manner, when forming a tone as a means of being the cause of the sound, but only as a path upon which the tone-forms as they are developed between the string and flat board can be perceived by the ear.
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Do not imagine the sound when you think about "tone," but only a form which, through a certain degree of vibration, is drawn out of some smooth and elastic surface. The sound is no more than a witness which, through regular vibration of some body that has the ability to vibrate, develops the forms of another underlying body. Even though you might believe that you are well-versed in the art of music, I say that there is hardly a subject with which you are less acquainted or more illinformed about than the art of music. As far as this subject is concerned, you do not know more than the worms which gnaw on the dead bark of a tree. Consequently, you compose a few different high and low tones and you take delight in them, just like the worms when they gnaw on the dead bark of a tree. But who among you has ever had the idea that the tone is one of the most wonderful forms?
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If you sing a note or a tone, or if you generate sound with an instrument, you have nothing more to say about it other than: This tone is a C or an A, and it belongs either to this or that octave. And you may also have the ability to know which instrument produced that tone or sound. Admit it: You do not know much about a tone, except perhaps that you can assess the quality of a tone and can rate its proportion in comparison with your ear, but that is about the extent of your knowledge of the tone.
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That you may have a fundamental understanding of how little knowledge you possess in the art of music, I will enlighten you a little in passing about the tone itself.
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You know that many strings can be tightened over one board, and each string will, in accordance with its tension, produce a different high or low tone, and everything will occur on one and the same board. If all possible differences of sound can be brought forth on one and the same board, then there must be an infinite number of forms contained in that board, so that they can appear completely perceptible through each possible degree of tension of the string.
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When you closely examine this particular board, what do you find? Nothing but an empty, flat board! And when you examine the strings that are attached to this board, what do you find? You find a uniform elastic string, either made of metal or the guts of an animal. And you have nothing but two flat uniformities, about which you cannot philosophize. Despite this, such multi-fariousness lies within these two flat uniformities that all the composers who have ever lived, dating back to the times of David, have not even taken a part of this in all their compositions; and these external tones are, in respect to the actual real tone, nothing but what the dead bark of a tree is in respect to its internal invisible spiritual life.
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In accordance with this, what is a tone? Tone is nothing more than a self-expression of the many endless harmonious spiritual forms and how they are inherent in matter or how they project into this matter. Therefore, the board of a musical instrument that vibrates with that instrument is an infinite world filled with spiritual forms. For example, if you strike a C or an A, then an entire creation with an eternally innumerable number of beings of all kinds reports to your ear in a uniformly perceptible way through that rudimentary sound.
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As a human being, you remain with what you perceive but you do not examine what is behind it. And even when, after several successive sounds, you are seized by some great ideas and these living spiritual forms literally grab you by the neck, you are blind and gnaw on the bark, without thinking that with every single tone, through the perceptible tone of a single word, all things that fill the entire infinity come forth. Now you should have a small idea of what a tone is and how different its great significance is from the monotonous sound that you call "tone."
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Since we previously proceeded from harmonious conditions and described how a continuous harmony exists between a flat board and a string, and how these effects at least outwardly originate out of this harmony, we can therefore bestow complete validity upon our first sentence, when it was said that between two celestial bodies there must exist a continuous harmony regardless of their distance from each other.
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Why is that so? Think of the sun as the vibrating board and the planets as the strings that are tightened over it. Now when the planets or strings that float around the vibrating board of the sun are struck by the light that emanates from the sun, the planets take on all the underlying forms that exist on the sun after they have received this legacy by means of the light and make the forms appear outwardly.
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If you now direct your attention upon the string of Saturn which is tightened over the same sun as the string of the earth which you inhabit, you should easily understand that the same cause which affects your earth and allows its forms to appear will therefore have the same effect on Saturn.
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For example, compare a piano with seven octaves to one with only five; you cannot deny that the piano with seven octaves has much higher or much lower tones than the one with five octaves. However, when you start playing the scales on the piano with the seven octaves at the same spot where the highest or lowest tone begins on the piano with five octaves, you will find that the scale will have the same rising and falling sound as it does on the piano with the five octaves; of course the tones of the larger instrument will probably sound stronger, have more volume and be more developed than on the smaller instrument.
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Actually, we already have all this information. I said in the beginning that we would take a general overview of the entire wild animal kingdom on Saturn; before we describe the domesticated animals individually, I just wanted to tell you that we have already made such a general overview. The description of the productive power of the sun had to be mentioned before, so that what still has to be said does not appear as blather or as a compelling representation of things on this planet which make it appear as if the one who declares this has lost his imagination and therefore seeks refuge in what the earth has to offer as regards formal appearances. So that you would have to say: All the animals you find on earth will also be found on Saturn, though of course with a few variations; they are proportionately larger in size and stronger, and, as a consequence, the light of the sun is more refracted and the animals are more colorful.
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Since such an anatomical analytical representation of the harmonious condition has preceded this, there should not be one person with a believing heart who would object when I say: Beginning with your largest original elephant down to the smallest mouse, Saturn has all of these animals as well on its surface, only they are proportionately larger and stronger and more varied in color between blue, green, red, white and black, while the colors of the animals on earth are rarely as completely developed, since the rays of the sun are still too intense and therefore they are not sufficiently separated when they fall to the ground. The coloration is at all times a consequence of the light. The flowers on earth are colored with all kinds of perfect colors, but these colors lack a certain living luster, whereas the flowers on Saturn become much more lively; not only does this coloration apply to the animals, but also to the humans on this planet.
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This should suffice as a general overview of the four-footed animals as well as the other animals of this planet. We will briefly examine only those few tame animals that the earthly piano with its five octaves does not contain.