When it is left down to religion we see praying (aka a form of meditating) humans argue with meditating (aka a form of praying) humans over linguistics. For that reason I have made sure that this guide is absolutely universal and if you feel triggered by the inclusion of ‘Pagan’ in the title and fear losing your soul, let me assure you that this blog is for everybody, including you (though you might have to open your mind a lot more for some of my points to hit home)!
If you want to jump straight in to practice, jump down to the section ‘How do I do it? Some easy starts based on my experiences’
What is Meditation?
Meditation comes in a variety of forms but ultimately what you are doing usually is aiming to achieve greater internal & external awareness, clarity & perspective through a process of paying attention both actively and inactively. This is achieved through a form of exercise varying from breath work to sequences of movements, but the process of the mind largely remains the same in each.
The goal of mediation can vary with culture and individual intentions and as well as aiming to achieve this greater inner balance, one might have the intention or goal of achieving a state of unity with the surroundings and present moment, sometimes known as a state of ‘no mind’ or ‘flow’. For some, especially in some spiritual schools or transcendental experiences the aim is to completely subdue and remove the ego to either find out who you truly are or to connect with and feel the divine force; usually in order to remove fear of death. We will focus on this more later but remember, there are a variety of intentions you might apply to each meditation style.
Often mistaken for trying to achieve a state of no thoughts or feelings, most meditation, in reality is usually more about training yourself to observe your feelings and become consciously aware of how they affect you. Meditation gives space to think how you might deal with your emotions or feelings and choose to respond as a human above your base level reactions.
An extreme example of this can be seen in the activities of the Shaolin monks who seem to be able to feel no pain despite feats such as snapping a spear shaft with their neck or lying on a nail. Researchers from Stanford found that the monks did feel the pain, very sharply and intensely, more so than a control group, but the signals for pain also very quickly disappear and the monks showed no external signals of being in pain. They achieve this by recognising pain as part of the self, not something external to run from. They pay it absolute, undivided attention, then subdue it, telling their own brain and body that there has been no harm and no need therefore for pain to continue, it has been experienced and passed. Pain is simply a teacher, a signalling system for them to master and understand.
In a similar vein meditation in various forms currently forms part of modern chronic pain management, utilising mostly the method of ‘mindfulness’ to observe pain and allow it to pass as it comes and goes.
Management of mental health issues such as general anxiety disorder, panic attacks and even invasive thoughts are possible to mitigate and over come using this technique. The success of meditation in this area is down to a process of reframing. When anxiety comes it is not dreaded as some external assailant but greeted as an internal part of the self, a part that is small and manageable, a part that can be observed, that will pass and ultimately like all things is also a teacher.
Types of Meditation
All types of meditation can be either guided or unguided.
Guided meditation is the use of a teacher to take you through your meditation sessions and keep the mind on track, set the exercises it should be focusing on and help to overcome obstacles you encounter along the way. Today there is an abundance of schools available in person (which is always best) or there are really high end meditation services like ‘Headspace’ available as an app, online or even on Netflix! I don’t recommend using Netflix, but if you’re already stuck on there, it can be a good way to guide your brain out of the binge watching trap and off to bed.
Unguided meditation is self-lead practice with you taking yourself through sessions alone. Self guided practice is the end goal for meditation, especially if you wish to master it at the highest level and know that you have control of the self and have fostered a life-long practice. It is accessible at all hours and places that way too!
A guide can be incredibly useful when you start and I’d certainly recommend the experience of group meditations or partner meditations but it might be that for you, this simple guide is enough to inspire you to get started!
Meditation intentions can be calming, insightful or a mix: set one as your main focus but go with the flow.
It is possible to practice with the intention of achieving a calm mind, with which to sleep or to be able to achieve a subsequent state of invigoration without being crippled by anxiety, such as a gymnast calming the mind before executing a well rehearsed routine. It is also possible to practice to achieve greater insight and wisdom. With the latter it is more common to focus on a question, allow thoughts to flow freely and to note these down as they come. Neither exists in isolation from the other and both can be calming or to produce insight as the mind goes through the process.
The important theme in both is setting an initial intention as to what you want to achieve, observing what comes and returning to your intention and exercise if your mind strays from the task.
Below are some of the ways in which we can classify meditations, though it is by no means a definitive and firm list, many types can fit into multiple categories.
Spiritual Meditation.
This is more of a focus or intention than it is a type of meditation style, this can be Theological, philosophical or spiritual. I would argue that someone trying to achieve the goal of union with a universal energy from a scientific standpoint would also fall into this field. The spiritual side is the hard part of the question philosophically as always and one you can draw your own conclusions from without restriction and with as much or little guidance from others as you want to need.
In the Judaeo-Christian tradition types of spiritual meditation include prayer; silence; contemplation; pilgrimage; hymns; sufferance and communion. Any exercise where the task is to contemplate or draw closer to God through these mechanisms is technically meditation.
In Hinduism the goal of meditation is to connect ones self spirit (the atman) with the all encompassing divine (or Brahman). They utilise many techniques including some that I will cover shortly but include breath work, chanting & of course Yoga.
Those looking at spiritual meditation from a scientific standpoint might find a lot of similarity in Hinduism, Taoism and in other old practices from a time where the highest pursuit of mankind was to examine the natural world and themselves (a pursuit too often lost today to technological realities and social paradigms, something which we can examine later!).
For those practicing contemporary ‘norse paganism’ you might at first want to focus on the nature of the different gods or stories as they are known to you; or to practice on the meanings accorded to the runes, a practice made popular by the story of Odin’s divination of them. These can be great focal points for spiritual meditation but expand your practice through the examination of other Indo-European cultural practices or those found in Arctic Circle cultures like the Sami. The routes of Christian practices like prayer repetition or praise hymns might also be of interest to examine as some seem to appear in Europe with differences to their Abrahamic origins.
There is a higher tier within spiritual meditation I will cover shortly under transcendental meditation!
Focused meditation.
This is arguably the most accessible and practically applied types of meditation for the busy person because not only does it take up no extra time, it can optimise your working time whilst forcing you to take time for yourself and senses.
This style of meditation is the disciplined, single focus on the task at hand. It is the opposite to multi tasking and being overwhelmed, it is the single, focused mind. There are a few types of focused meditation. Firstly there is the usual method of focused and intentional breathing, usually in an upright posture with the focus being on paying attention to only the flow of the breath, allowing the mind to just be, but returning attention to the breath. This can incorporate a variety of breathing exercises but for the most part is kneeling with slow drawing breaths.
Then we have ritual based and work based or as I call it ‘tea & chores’.
The ritual based tasks are simple. You can make a pot of tea properly, taking the time to smell the leaves, to check the water temperature, to prepare the cup, to pour it appropriately and carefully, all whilst keeping your mind focused entirely on only this task. Having a set and advanced ritual for this can help set you up for the day and indeed there are advanced etiquettes around tea ceremonies in Japan based on this principle. It helps that green tea also has meditative effects! Your ritual need not stop at tea, it is also possible to have a self care ritual or a pre-sports ritual, even a pre-work of preparation to which you keep your mind on to prepare it for its best self. Others turn to fields of craft such as pottery or calligraphy which compliment meditation in return.
At the other end of focus meditation there is work itself. This is a matter of paying the utmost attention to your task and completing it proficiently and efficiently. This can be as simple as sweeping the floor, paying attention to your stroke, the feeling and weight of the brush and to the completeness of your task.
For a skilled worker or craftsman this is perhaps almost natural but keeping the brain on task in an office environment where you are doing a job that you hate and your mind tells you every day that you shouldn’t be there is a little harder and perhaps a subject for another article, but being present where you are and focusing on performing every task as well as possible will still help you to feel more content and worthy.
This style of meditation is particularly useful for those with ‘ADHD’ anxiety and other such issues around staying present and focused, particularly if you remove known obstacles such as phones.
Ultimately you are aiming to remain focused on your task, unmovingly unless absolutely required and foster a mind that is still and ready. In doing so without distraction, you will find your way to being more present and a lot more functional but also capable of performing at your best physically. (For a good picture of this imagine the old master in a kung fu film who doesn’t get up from drinking their tea when a bully approaches but when the bully throws a punch at him, he moves and counters with powerful, focused accuracy.)
Mindfulness meditation
This style is the one most commonly associated with buddhism but has become very popular in the west with the majority of meditation focused research orientating around mindfulness practice. It has been proven to improve sense of wellbeing and reduce stress, depression and anxiety. It is arguably the simplest, most accessible, efficient and rewarding form of meditation with good short & long term benefits. Sessions range usually from 2-20 minutes, increasing in duration as you become more practiced.
Practice is usually stationary in a seated or lying position and involves beginning with an exercise such as focusing on the breath. This method is more usually guided and the one favoured by services such as ‘Headspace’. It starts with acknowledging the reality of where you are, including the sensations you are feeling and the thoughts or feelings you are having. You then become aware of your mind and how it is working, simply observing it and recognising its processes without judgement or attempting to force change. This style allows and sometimes encourages the mind to wander before returning the attention to observing the mind or the original exercise which is usually just breathing or noticing external feelings such as the weight of your own body on the earth.
During mindfulness sessions there are other tools used, mostly in guided sessions such as bringing awareness to particular areas of the body; noting what distracts the mind; visualising certain images such as places or loved ones; focusing on feelings of kindness and love for others; directing compassion; reflecting on gratitude; and finding true rest within the mind.
This method helps you to appreciate the present reality you are in and above all else is an effective tool for daily life giving yourself mental clarity quickly, arming yourself with the ability to handle any passing situation calmly.
Moving meditation
Yoga & Tai Qi and many martial arts are the most obvious examples of intentional moving meditation although outdoor walking in nature and barefoot walking have become recent additions. In this field, depending on the school the focus can be to bring awareness to the body and mind, to master both or to achieve a state of reactionary movement free from conscious thought through repetition.
Hot yoga or cold water swimming also fall into this category as do some of the more vigour types of breath works which due to their laborious nature really qualify as movement. It can really apply to anything and bodybuilding with its intense internal focus in a calm environment is viewed by some as an arran in which to apply some of the principles usually associated with Yoga.
Although the focus here is usually on awareness movement meditation finds itself running through faster paced martial arts and other sports in what is known as ‘no mind’ or ‘flow state’, a state in which there is no thought process happening, only the correct trained decisions and responses happening at instant speed with the mind seemingly in perfect unison with the body and its external reality and present moment. This is achieved largely by automation through disciplined and repeated practice without hesitation of movement, only response to stimuli: seeing what stimuli is truly there due to the presence of utter concentration.
Miyamoto Musashi, a famous samurai of the 16-17th century incorporated pre & post fight meditation along with repeated practice of movements to allow automation in combat. The risk of instant death and the decisive action required to avoid this is certainly a high pressure situation to evolve this in. Musashi knew that hesitation and having to actively think of what an opponent was going to do would ultimately make him too slow to react. He developed lightening speed and reactions by allowing his thought process to be utterly subdued to accommodate actions developed in disciplined training to take over. Musashi went 61-0 in single combat to the death.
Today we understand this with principles such as that of the claimed 10,000 hours of practice required for automation. Truly a lot fo time put into meditation!
Sound meditation
Any resonant meditation falls into this category including the production of music but also the use of chanting mantras with or without melody. Both instances are usually for prolonged periods of time though it can be as brief as a song or hymn. This varies from the famous (and for some, annoying,) Hare Krishna movement to the very simple and accessible ‘om’ heard from monks to legging wearing smoothie drinking moms.
The important thing with this is to pay attention to the resonance of the sound or to the repetition of the mantra and your focus. Some schools encourage the mind to wander to insightful realisations whilst others encourage focus to be brought back to the sound depending on the goal. There really is a lot you can do with this and I highly recommend making some intentional noise. For more meaning, check out my previous blog on music & the divine!
Visual meditation
This is arguably the most difficult form of meditation as it requires actively holding an image in your minds eye and is best done with some guidance. It can be as simple as holding an image of a bright blue, beautiful sky; a warm white light of peace; or a gentle stream to foster a feeling of safety and distance from the business of life. It can also be a lot more complex such as formulating sophisticated moving mandalas in the minds eye (Marvel fans might think of Doctor Strange here..) or meditating on a deity, ancestor or even visualising a future event.
This method allows us to harness and direct our creative mind and gain mastery of the cinema that can sometimes occur inside our head, sometimes intrusively. This style can also lead into lucid dreaming although that is again another topic.
Transcendental Meditation
I know this is the bit that some of you are most excited to read! Mushrooms & magic time eh? This type has a lot of cross over with the spiritual and can really utilise any of the above techniques (including ecstatic dance, tantra, breath work, drum trance) with or without the use of substances to alter the state of consciousness. The focus is on elevating the self to a higher level of consciousness and being, at least for the duration of the session, but ideally into your everyday waking life. It represents a chance for spiritual re-birth and usually involves entering a trance-like state of meditation.
A fascinating take on the union of psychedelic substances with Tibetan style meditation can be found in Timothy Leary’s ‘The Psychedelic Experience’ which is the Tibetan book of the Dead oriented around a mushroom or LSD trip. Many individuals have claimed Leary’s take on this to have provided accessible and life changing experiences, although many practicing monks today claim that these substances are not part of their culture and the goal is to achieve this level of consciousness through meditation alone. Either way the texts are highly worth a read and an inquiring mind might wish to try this. It is certainly likely that substances were used to achieve a state of transcendental meditation in many ancient Indo-European cultures including ancient Greece and Germanic tribes. Other cultures around the world carry out ritual experiences to this end using substances such as mushrooms, peyote and ayahuasca to this day.
This method is for advanced practitioners only, with or without substances and no short cuts should be taken. Be a responsible and respectful adult or reap the consequences.
(I have to mention that this is not the trademarked and patented program of transcendental meditation (yup thats a thing) but the academic sense of the word).
How do I do it? Some easy starts based on my experiences
My science based approach is still very spiritual. I am grounding, my electrons connecting with the earth, I am recognising that I am part of a universal energy, I am recognising that in others, I am asking who and what I am. All of my practice is both based around evidence and yet all very clearly spiritual at the same time. There is no line between scientific and spiritual truth: only truth. Here is an easy way to start with this method.
Ground & breathe
This is the easiest method to start with and one I find very effective. You can use either the mindful method or the focused method described earlier.
Congratulations, you are now a well rooted tree. Raise your arms up towards the sun and enjoy how it feels. Raining? Great, notice how the rain invigorates and refreshes your skin. What fool taught you to hate the rain?
Temperature & calm
Nothing quietens your other thoughts like the presence of a strong external sensation. Cold water therapy is the perfect tool for that! If you’re just starting out, try water at 12-14 degrees centigrade for 6-8 minutes and work your way down to 4 degrees centigrade for 2-4 minutes over time. Make sure you have a way to get warm after and if you’re doing it outdoors make sure you have a spotter when you first try and follow local water safety advice.
You will find the cold pushes everything else out of your brain and the breathing helps you to capitalise on the calm space that leaves behind. Keep that feeling with you throughout the day!
Exercise & focus
This one is really easy. Pick an exercise in any discipline; set what you will accomplish, make sure it is challenging enough for you but achievable; leave behind any phone or other distraction; and do it.
Anytime you find yourself wanting to quit or to give in to distraction as a way out, bring your mind back to the breath and to the feelings in the body, own them. Own the feeling of struggle, own the burning, own the quality of your movement and effort it is all you. Be present in your body as it becomes better and better at being alive, acknowledge and own the struggle!
The aim is not to be violent towards yourself, but to gently silence the voices of doubt and increase your confidence and capacity. Do something that is a genuine, achievable challenge for you. That includes a mental challenge like completing a yoga class without losing focus or running a whole 5k without stopping your set pace.
Love & presence
Find a dance partner for this one. They can be really there, or they can be a loved one that you visualise. For my example I will use a romantic partner meditation (for this one, I highly recommend some music, for example soft Indian flute). 2 minutes is good to start with and progress to 10-15 minutes, you can add in various forms of touch or gentle movement or position changes to this. There are some good guides in Tantra practices (its not just kink) that you may wish to progress to. This is a very basic introductory exercise.
Barriers to mediation
The phucking phone & co.
The single most present, completely intentional disruptor of human focus, clarity and consciousness today is the mobile phone. Whilst mindful and intentional use can create a fantastic tool for modern life: using it within the first 90 minutes of waking can disrupt the process of consciousness assembling and substantially impair your cognition and ability to focus for the day; social media and other endless task based apps deplete your dopamine system; using the phone after dark and within the 2-3 hours before bed can disrupt your circadian rhythm causing impairment of sleep quality and insomnia resulting in lower levels go cognition and recovery.
Get this thing in the bin as much as you can! I promise you will feel 10x better if you spend just 72 hours with no phone. A sensible idea is to limit phone and ideally all screen usage to 9am-8pm. Strong blue light blocking glasses reduce some impacts of evening screen use for intentional viewing purposes.
Mastering the Monkey
The ‘monkey mind’ is a term used in Chinese buddhism to describe the state of mind of early practitioners and indeed the state of most of society. They copy and mimic; they are fuelled by their wants; they are prone to follow the crowd; they react only impulsively. For this you might think of observing a small child, it might watch a video featuring an annoying catchphrase and then repeat this over and over, only becoming more annoying and excitable when you request it to stop. You might also think of the well documented phenomenon of herd mentality in humans, where over 80% of humans will copy the behaviour of other humans in the room, even if the behaviour is absurd and abnormal (for example one group had unwitting participants enter a doctors surgery full of actors who stand up every time a buzzer went and performed a movement. The majority of participants joined in..).
Perhaps the most pressing example for anyone with children is to observe how easily their behaviour might be influenced by peer pressure into doing silly things that none of the individual children would exhibit alone, even to the point of criminality. A side note on criminality, meditation has been found effective in reducing instances of violence and repeat offences in prison inmates.
This monkey mind is the default, evolved setting for a human being at birth, it is both your biggest burden and greatest asset. Allowing it to run amok will only see you participate unconsciously in your own designs and often you will be turbulent and easily lead astray. However, the monkey is also your primal strength and instinct. Learning to both listen to it and be able to quieten and think above it is the goal of self mastery through meditation.
When the monkey is chattering away, trying to do what it wants “Meditate??? Sit still and think?? How about watching a movie or eating some chips?” we must not be angry at it, it is a monkey! Of course it wants to do silly and short sighted things! You though, are a human and you can laugh at your monkey, calm it down and think “I will meditate because then my monkey mind will sleep and I can exercise, talk to my loved ones and think about how the great world turns instead.” However when the monkey screams “We’re in danger!!” it’s wise to listen and examine immediately because the monkey has been around a lot longer than the human and has sharper instincts.
Why should I do it?
To be healthy
To be happy
To be focused & achieve
Meditation gives you room to be an individual and get perspective: not to be just a copying monkey, but an agent of universal consciousness. It gives you the ability to feel the energy that flows through you and all things. I could list a lot of the studies supporting meditation in a very practical way, but nothing gives wisdom like experience: so just bloody try it alright!
End note
A wasp in meditation
Whilst a relatively insignificant example I’ll share with you the results from one of my meditation sessions today due to its proximity to my writing.
Today I used focused meditation to prepare for my day. I brought my attention to my dog, noticing how her fur feels, how she smells, how she makes me feel and how she feels herself, was she happy and calm and content, yes, in this way I entered a state of content clarity and began to write. If I felt myself wonder away from the task at hand or to get overwhelmed with my work load I brought my attention back to the dog, relaxed and then transferred my attention back to the task in front (this technique is a little unconventional but particularly effective for people with Aspergers and other ASDs and can help prevent inertia or overwhelm).
During this a wasp began to bother us, flying repeatedly close and aggressively towards us and beginning to disrupt my focus and aggravate the dog. This resulted in an initial reaction to the wasp, successfully striking it down to the ground in my first hit. However I acted too early when the wasp was only investigating and as I did not move to strike a killing blow (annoying as they are, they are still an important insect!) it simply become more annoying.
Once a wasp is on a flightpath it will be on that flightpath until it changes course due to new stimuli. They repeat it over and over. If you strike it once it is better to end it or it will only be more aggressive and bothersome. So unless you intend to strike a killing blow, when you truly need to you should make the decision to be indifferent to its noise.
Even if the wasp were to sting, it can not hurt you anyway, its sting would only teach you and iron in the wisdom of this lesson by making it more memorable! This is useful to remember too when dealing with the minds of other monkeys and bothersome bullies with a nature akin to Mr Wasp. Being mindful today was both calming, allowing me to work and intuitive as a result of the process that occurred in work and my insistent insect companion for the day.
Thank you for taking the time to read my blog and to all who support its creation! If you would like to help me to continue these works, you can now 'buy me a drink' directly on the DFO store here! Thank you!
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Finding our voice
The human voice took its modern form and had the capacity to sing at least 550,000 years ago. We also had already the area of the brain for understanding rhythm & interpreting complex sounds. Whether early humans used their voice to sing is another question entirely and one we will likely never be able to evidence in either direction. That said, I think it’s likely we have been ‘singing’ at least in some form for a good while.
Most zoologists classify ‘singing' as a sequence of tones that may be repeated over time to form something close to (or actually forming) a melody. Frogs, insects and even one species of mouse meet this criteria, but there is a higher level: that of composition. For composition to be classified, the song must be learnt (not innate) and the species be capable of creating variations on this, examples include whales, of course birds and most interestingly for us: fellow primates.
If gibbons can duet, so can we.. Dad jokes aside, the question is: did we have the reason to do so & when would this come about?
Proto-music may have included ecstatic noise during high moods; attempting to sooth infants; to maximise attention to important story telling; mourning or conflict chanting. A number of palaeontologists believe that boundary disputes or territorial markings in particular are a likely candidate for hominids in the middle Pleistocene and that by 130,000 years b.p Neanderthals could have been singing to mark territories in a similar way we’d expect from canines & lions, who occupied the same place in the food chain.
Hominids, especially our own species, have a high volume of mirror neurones enabling them to rapidly understand the intent of actions and copy them. This applies to signals, language and any communicative sounds, so it’s likely that if ‘singing’ was started as a means of communication or conveying meaning it would have been rapidly dissected, stored and replicated. If ‘singing’ received any kind of positive social response, it would have even more rapidly spread within groups.
We are a species with a high degree of social complexity & have been creatively expressive for at least 45,000 years which we can evidence through the discovery of visual arts in the archeological record as well as ceremonial dress findings. With the arrival of the first expressive art forms appearing across Afro-Eurasia from around 40,000b.c.e we first see the evidence that humans are capable of composing. This might of translated to sound after this, or in all likelihood before.
Perhaps the aboriginal example can be examined for supporting evidence of earlier music. Aboriginal people, who were far away from human contact for 70,000 years, were singing and dancing their stories when they were later contacted by the west. That doesn’t provide evidence of singing 70,000 years ago, but given the lack of innovation stimuli on Australia and lack of substantially developed technologies it might indicate a slightly greater probability of singing being present in humans prior to the first inhabitation of Australia. Even if not, it’s certainly suggestive of singing being a fairly universal phenomenon.
Feeling the rhythm
Human history isn’t human history without the hammering of hand axes; beating their percussion through mines, into wood and into stone. The unmistakeable tempo of a human swing beat out the story of our species from the first hammer stones 3.3-2.6million years ago, predating our genus, to the human hand axes, to the height of the bronze age axe cultures that placed shafted axes in the hands of their highest gods. Even for the protectors of humanity; the sky gods who would eventually be known as Thor in some parts of the world held these tools, symbols of dominion and fertility.
It is interesting to note that even chimpanzees, our closest relatives appear to use percussive rhythm of stone hand tools to show dominance and attract mates. There even appears to be a group in west Africa purposely bouncing stones off of hollow trees to communicate, establish dominant strength of throw or at least entertain themselves.
Somewhere in this beat of everyday life we began to experiment with the first musical instruments. The earliest examples we’ve found show a clear grasp of music was already a present part of life prior to the crafting of the instruments. A mammoth ivory flute at least 35,000 years old was found in Germany, featuring multiple finger holes and playing a 5 note scale. It wasn’t the only one, indeed many were found in Germany and around Europe including some of bird bone too (the birds likely having been a meal!) meaning life in the upper Palaeolithic was musical. Perhaps the sound of these early flutes accompanied the rhythm of the axe?
Despite the existence of instruments in the archeological records, at this stage, we can’t be sure of the level of composition & comprehension around music until written evidence arrives.
We have the first finds of history on Sumerian clay tablets around 2000b.c.e and later, dated 1400b.c.e, a full intact tablet of music including accompanying instructions on how it should be played on a 9 stringed lyre. This piece, known as ‘Hurrian hymn number 6’ is a dedication to the wife of the Moon god, her name ‘Nikkal’.
Becoming conscious
We’ll jump forward now to the dawn of classical Greece and a time where humanity had certainly been using music to connect with the divine in the form of hymns. The origins of music were attributed to the gods with the auros of Pan and the Lyre of Hermes, later Apollo. Tales of Orpheus tell of man’s mastery of music and its ability to charm the spirits of men, beasts, gods and even elemental forces. Music was a formation of divine order from chaos and provided mastery of oneself and others. Its here that man most clearly achieves a higher level of consciousness in understanding music & sound’s place in the order of the universe.
Arguably the figure who had the most impact or notoriety on this front was Pythagorus. Now, he’s a somewhat disputable fellow with it being difficult to attribute things to him accurately, some of his ideas might have been taught to him and some of the theories attributed to him, may have been the works of students. When I talk about him here, I mean the the Pythagorus to whom these theories are broadly attributed to which may or may not include some works of those in his immediate circle. He wrote about ethics, mathematics, politics, religion and our chief interests: Musical theory & Metaphysics.
Pythagorus was instrumental (pun intended) in music, he is attributed as having worked out, mathematically, that the size of hammers or strings struck or plucked correlated directly to the sound they produced and that the ratios between them required to create perfect accompanying notes was 2:1. This correlated to the circumference of the string, giving evidence to him of a mathematically perfect universe in which the more wholesome the number, the more beautiful the sound created. It would take a few thousand words more to adequately cover musical theory and math is slightly deep waters for me, so let us move on to one of his most relevant theories.
The school associated with Pythagorus believe that mathematics (and therefore music) holds the key to understanding the beauty of the universe. Pythagorus believed that beauty was universally recognisable and was always more beautiful the more mathematically pure it was. He philosophised a music of the heavens in which the stars and planets played out in one giant symphony of perfect music according to their proportions to each other and their orbits. He imagined this to impact life on earth and that we simply couldn’t hear the music because it always played and as such the ear filtered it out. This was a level of new complexity in consciousness whereby man had not only composed music but come to reflect on why certain sounds were more appealing. They believed this effect to be intrinsic and universal to man & beast alike. A natural affinity to be close to music or sounds which are closer to the divine. Pythagorus claimed the highest goal of music is to connect the soul to this divine, mathematically perfect nature.
Plato also turned his attention to the effect of music on the human mind & ‘soul’. In ‘The Republic’ he assumed that music resembled aspects of the inner self and of the higher spiritual realities & virtues: the meta physical. He believed too the effects of music to be innate and that they were not just the expression of the music’s creator, or these higher realities, but that music could effect the habits & behaviours of the listener too. Plato goes as far as to suggest that music can help to bolster propositions of truth and recommended it vigorously as part of education in his ‘Republic’ saying:
“..education in music is most sovereign, because more than anything else rhythm and harmony find their way to the inmost soul and take strongest hold upon it, bringing with them and imparting grace..”
Plato also believed, equally, that music came with responsibility as music could also be used to cause disruption, over indulgence in pleasures or laziness. He favoured particularly the style of Ionian music, but rejected other, raunchier modes! I think Plato would die on the spot of rage if he saw today’s children imitating ‘slut drops’ to ‘WAP’ and well, perhaps he had a point about the need for responsibility in music.. any way, back to the past!
Aristotle, a student of Plato who diverged in many ways, saw eye to eye with Plato broadly on the topic of music, underpinning how essential it was to teach music of good ‘ethos’ in paideia, the cultural education of society. He did however see a little more room for other pleasures in music and that this may well be virtuous too. He still would still defecate on the spot were he listening to modern German rap music I’m sure, something my neighbours insist on forcing on the block to the disruption of my own musings.. the past!!
Boethius continued this school of thought in the 5-6thCentury AD in his treatise ‘De Institutione Musica’ would pick back up on Greek classical thought, returning to the notion that music corresponded directly to human nature, but not just human nature. He described three types of theoretical music which would be influencial throughout the later middle ages and into the Renaissance:
Boethius would conclude “music is so naturally united with us that we cannot be free from it even if we so desired”.
A long succession of philosophers, mathematicians & physicists would turn their attention to music over the classical era until the illiterate blight of abrahamic religions would rise up and fill the void following the decline of Rome. Europe would experience an intellectual & creative dark age for a few hundred years during which music theory might have taken a back seat.
Despite the later dominion of the church over Western thought for some centuries, thanks to written texts, knowledge survived and was returned to from the 15th century onwards. Boethius’ texts received a latin re-write and circled in popularity again. Musica Mundana was influential throughout the late middle ages and even the Renaissance.
Later, Kepler would muse in the 17thC c.e. that man, in the shape of the creator, made music to mirror the natural order created by God. The notion that like begots like and if we were indeed made in the likeness of God, we would replicate some of Gods behaviours on a human level.
Kepler would outline that harmony was achieved by the tones made by heavenly bodies and furthered the tie between astronomy and music. He wasn’t alone, with the likes of Vincenzo Galilei, an influential figure in the founding of the modern Opera contributing to the field and the education of his son Galileo through the continued union of music & astronomy as fields of mathematics.
It is important to remember that scientists had to relate everything back to God, quite specifically the abrahamic God as viewed by the Church to avoid accusations of heresy for the best part of 1,500 years. Galileo Galilei found when he was placed under house arrest for most of his career following the inquisition for daring to point out the now obvious fact that the Earth orbits around the Sun..
Scientists mostly viewed God to be found in nature and not in scripture which was a tricky path to work and a story for another blog!
Fortunately science and mathematical truth would eventually win out and would go on to help produce fantastic complexity with artists like Beethoven and later Wagner creating incredible, moving pieces and for me, firmly underlining the universal nature of the effect of music on humanity.
Despite a few errors per person, most of the theorists I’ve covered would turn out to be right at least in part, and right more often than not as we enter the modern period. Join me for that next week and we shall see if we can’t predict the future too!
I hope you enjoyed my latest piece! I’m an amateur writer and not a physicist so I hope I did the topic justice and inspired you to take a further look!
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]]>Bronze represents more than the brilliant ingenuity of the human mind. It is the beginning of the stage of shared learning that will result in four thousand years of accelerating innovation. The bronze age would be the start of a journey which took humanity from staring at the stars to joining them. Even more amazingly the fundamentals of theoretical physics that would enable this also began in the bronze age as thriving trade created more free time for intellectuals to ponder.
When the Bronze Age collapsed, later peoples looked back and imagined a time where gods and men joined the battlefield in epics like the Iliad, such was its prowess and impression on humanity.
To call the Bronze age a revolution perhaps seems over enthusiastic given the relatively slow pace of Bronze adaptation compared to today’s globalised and digital world, but its impact would be significant enough to define an archeological era. The process took place over several thousand years in Afro-Eurasia starting with the first understanding of metals like gold and, more importantly for Bronze, the use of Copper.
Humanity’s first steps into metallurgy, as early as 9,000BCE, would pave the way for understanding the properties of metal: at what temperature it melted, how it solidified and what use that then was. It didn't take long for copper axes to be understood as superior to stone axes and even in places comparatively lagging behind like neolithic Sweden, stone axes began to imitate copper ones in their design.
Some of the early bronze discoveries are the result of accidental use of naturally occurring Copper-tin alloys like Stannite but the intentional creation of Bronze as an alloy metal created with the blending of native Copper & Tin was perfected in the late 3rd millennium BCE and thats when the Bronze age really kicks off in India, Western Eurasia & shortly after in China.
Bronze didn’t spread by trade alone, it seems to have popped up independently in several locations. If you want an easy understanding of how Bronze was discovered in multiple locations, give a couple of blokes free time, a hot fire, some metal to melt, cool and whack each other with to see what’s hardest and sharpest. Humanity really hasn’t changed that much!
Metals, often initially visible at the surface, were extracted through a process of mining. Both native Copper and Tin were mined through horizontal and vertical shaft methods, making use of ladders & ropes to access the ore. For my friends reading in the UK, you can see fantastic examples of this in Cornwall & Wales.
Tin was far rarer than Copper and in the peak of demand was more valuable than Gold. It was also rare to find Tin & Copper in one site with the exception of a few places including Cornwall. The region, after furnishing its own bronze wares from around 2,000BCE, became one of the most significant exporters of Tin in Europe and potentially as far as the near East. We certainly know it was significant in France, the lower Netherlands and in Germany where Tin on the Nebra Sky Disc was verified as having come from Cornish mines.
The classic combination of Bronze was created by combining 90% melted Copper & 10% melted Tin for the use of bladed and pointed weapons, whilst a slightly lower volume of tin was used to make bronze for armour. These standardised methods became such a staple and standard of connected bronze age economies that bronze was kept as a store of value, with several finds of multiple unused bronze axe heads having been unearthed by archeologists at various sites.
Once a superior technique was developed through trial and innovation it spread and as trade of materials became more vast and of greater volume, innovation increased further. What this lead to was the sharpest, hardiest weapons and armours humanity had known to date and this lead to simultaneous innovations in warfare.
Trade, war & power always go hand in hand. If something presents itself as an easier way of securing resources (security, food, shelter) and social status (mating rights, access to knowledge, proximity to resource) it becomes more desirable. This then creates more conflict, requiring ever increasingly sophisticated methods of attack and defence but also, importantly diplomacy. All of which drives further trade for materials, further wealth and power and further desire for war and demand for greater diplomacy. In this way wealth and innovation are crucial for evolving the complexities of power & politics.
This abundance in place of subsistence also allows for more free time. Abundance & Time have children more beautiful than War for they birth Order & Specialisation. Having an excess of resource means Order is necessary which leads to greater levels of societal structure and protection. Aspects like justice & politics become essential for peaceful trade and the fair administration of proceeds amongst a group involves members of a society, raising their expectations along with levels of knowledge and literacy. Specialisation, the second child means artists, teachers, priests, poets and every more advanced mechanists contribute to a more advanced society. The circumstances of the Bronze age therefor drive humanity forwards into new levels of complexity, largely beginning to displace the communal societies that began to form in the Neolithic in favour of palatial societies (many of which, like Minoan Crete did remain fairly communal which is conducive to peace & prosperity when balanced with proper incentives).
The Bronze age represents a turning point for humanity on another level. Here Humanity began to behave very evidently in a way inline with Universal physics. There are several very long term trends evident in physics that are mirrored in human behaviour, ultimately which is governed by the same rules as all matter. These trends are: Increase in Complexity of structure, increase in Energy consumption and increasing Acceleration.
Complexity is of course visible socially in the Bronze Age, we see the emergence of epic poetry, warfare of notable scale, but most importantly we see the rise of intricate societies based around trade and the exchange of culture. Complex relationships that valued the power of war, keeping it at bay where possible and embracing it with ferocity when not. We see strings of complexity with increased trade and politics too, tying humanity together. But the development of Bronze itself is also complex on a physical material level too.
The intentional creation of Bronze, sees humanity take two elements and fuse them together to create an alloy. This is the first time a living organism consciously does this to our knowledge on earth, and potentially in the whole of existence. It mirrors the scale of formation of elements of increasing complexity in space history such as we see in the formation of Stars and the Solar systems. Life, itself a part of increasing complexity, here for the first time consciously chooses to create a substance of increased complexity.
The increase of energy consumption is apparent and obvious, fires needed to be heated to well over the needs for warmth or cooking for melting metals, then subsequent treatment for finished products. It is even possible to detect atmospheric metal changes in the archeological record dating to the period corresponding to the Bronze Age. The transportation of ingots required materials for ships and carts whilst the increased productivity & prosperity required increased production of food to meet growing populations. Although still very, very low compared to today there are estimates of a global population of around 100million in the hight of the Bronze age, having risen from estimates of 25-30million at 4,000BCE. This also drove innovations in farming & water management.
The Bronze Age saw further innovations which would subsequently drive up both complexity of society and energy consumption. Each innovation made another innovation possible, as did each new demand of a growing civilisation. The acceleration effect is obvious at this point, a result of accumulated resources and knowledge. Today we make technological leaps in a single year of arguably greater significance than the entire technological history of humanity. This is largely a result of collective learning, by which we learn from others including those long dead thanks to records and cumulative learning, by which we may today expect to learn a lot due to the availability and access to information.
The bronze age is the first time humans consciously contribute to material complexity, and this begins their acceleration towards ever heightened levels of technical ability and understanding. Perhaps in the bronze age, humanity truly did talk to the gods, and learnt their secrets of fire and sorcery; creating metals and carrying out universal trends. Perhaps such stories are metaphors or simply ‘Golden Days’ fantasies written about in subsequent dark ages where hope was harder to imagine.
There is perhaps a warning in the history of Bronze age civilisations worth examining further, one of malfeasance and disaster. The collapse of the Bronze Age is thought to have been significantly worse than that of Rome and arguably represents the largest scale societal collapse known in the historical record (although not in the archeological record where H.Sapien once nearly bottle necked out of existence!).
The collapse of Bronze age societies lead to a severe loss of knowledge, technical prowess, trade connections and peace with declining cultures competing to seize territory and resource access. Several civilisations collapsed entirely including the Mycenaean & Hittites whilst several others declines severely, including the new kingdom of Egypt & the Canaanite state. The city of Mycenae, Greece, for example was destroyed by an earth quake and rebuilt only to fall to fire less than a century later whilst 90% of small Greek Bronze Age towns were destroyed or abandoned indicating significant depopulation. By 800 BC this seems to have caused a recession of bronze in Britain, one of the key mining areas for Tin, signifying the collapse to have impacted the entire trade network.
There is a bustle of discussion still amongst scholars as to the cause of collapse with conversation covering: Climatic change due to the Suns natural variability; several earthquakes and volcanic eruptions; failings in leadership & administration (due perhaps to complacency of inheriting rulers); and the impacts of the Dorians (from Macedonia region) invading Greece and the “Sea Peoples” who appear to have been invaders or raiders, notably pestering the Hittite region & Egypt. The Sea Peoples are a subject perhaps for another time, they may have been displaced or warring Mycenaean Greeks, or from Sardinia & are the Nuragic culture. Other accounts from Egypt referring to circumcision means they may have been Semitic. It’s also possible they weren’t a coherent band at all but rather a trend of Pirates due to the turbulence of the period.
Whether the cultures collapsed due to integrated systemic collapse, raiding parties or environmental factors, it ultimately happened as a result of innovation falling behind demands. If the demand is climatic change, survival requires innovation in farming, water extraction and resource management. If the demand is earth quakes, this requires innovation in building design (see Japan). If the demand is Piracy, the requires innovation in naval control & policy. Demands soon pile up when it’s not possible to pay the piper and innovation always has a high initial cost, meaning a spiralling collapse is always possible in times of recession. When resources fall, war is inevitable in Human history.
Collapse happened on a larger scale in the Bronze age than ever before or since due to increased interconnectedness and complexity. Subsequent ‘dark ages’ followed throughout the last 2 millennia and we could very easily see them again. In fact some writers go as far as to say this has already been happening in Europe since the mid 20th Century. Some, like the economist Adam Smith might point in the earlier direction of Industrialisation and highlight loss of intelligence due to deskilling as the cause. Others like the contemporary Douglas Murray might point to the effects of anti-European rhetoric such as the attack on the conventional family, on trade and on native European peoples from media players coupled with the largest mass migrations ever seen causing rapid internal changes and conflicts as well as wealth redistribution. He would highlight the United Kingdom where more undocumented migrants cross the Channel every month than the entire invading force of the Norman conquest of 1066, all whist questioning the possible challenges of this is heavily self-censored.
Other proponents of impending catastrophe would point to current supply issues; failing polar political structures; disinformation; the undeniable threat of global Soil degradation through short-sighted mismanagement; the threat of collapsing fish stocks; of falling pan-species fertility & androgenic traits due to plastic pollution; of air quality and of the threat of climatic change (which is often seen as the most pressing but in reality is the least of humanities concerns, we did after all thrive very well in Europe during a time where lions and hippos roamed the Savannah of England!). Humanity certainly isn’t short of demands against its existence.
Regardless of potential current or future cause: in a globalised world, where most people don’t possess the means to provide their own food, water and warmth the result of mounting demands exceeding innovation now would be disastrous beyond the scale of anything we’ve seen previously. In the Bronze age, families fished, farmed, sailed & fought; any single family unit was capable of survival. In contrast today we have a society that is in part highly specialised at elite levels of Science and Technology and in part deskilled in the working classes. There are very, very few family units as a percentage capable of surviving a civilisation collapse today. If the supermarkets ran dry, more than 90% of metropolitan populations would starve to death within a few short months with people who choose to prepare for such eventualities as were seen several times in the 20th century still somehow seen as the odd ones.
What do we do with all of this? We reflect, stoically, on the very real strength but also vulnerability of our human story with reverence for those who came before. Not in some romanticised airy fairy manner, but with a very real accord and respect for history and the innovations that paved the road to where we stand today. Whilst we stand here, it is imperative we now understand the burden of our consciousness and we ask ourselves, what will we do to honour the struggles of the past and to ensure our future?
We need to ask if we have the strength of society to flourish now and the resilience that would be needed to survive a collapse. Do we have the ability to burden the responsibility of the human story and contribute to its future as active participants and not just hopeless spectators? Do we have the strength to continue it if our civilisation collapses? Are we participating in keeping our society robust & responsible?
Why am I talking about the potential for human catastrophe when you came here for a nice blog about the Bronze age? Because history we don’t learn from, is nothing more than a fairy tale.
The flip side of complexity and interconnectedness such as we have today is that we do have the ability to innovate rapidly and to communicate needed changes with each other. There is no one with a vested interest in complete societal collapse and we have incredible access to informative resources to combat threats. Already we have incredible breakthroughs on the horizon in fields like quantum data transportation and we are learning more about the structure of our universe than ever before. There is certainly no need for any kind of despair, on the contrary we must embrace our history and look forward to an incredible future of demands solved through innovation. Collapse is NOT inevitable until all matter is gone in billions of years. We might well even solve that demand some day with innovation! For now I implore you to participate in learning, become resilient and we will thrive under the Sun, in a future that is brighter than the most glorious days of our past. The dark ages don’t have to come and they don’t have to last. The human story has always been one of overall ingenuity.
If you want to own a modern homage to the past to serve as a reminder of our human story, you can get 20% off all Descended from Odin’s bronze collection with the code BRONZEBLOG.
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]]>Misty Alpine passes; crashing rivers that rise suddenly from nowhere; men descended from great bears; hills filled with dwarves & a dragon living under the mountain of a lake side town..
It’s easy to follow Tolkien’s imagination through the beautiful Swiss landscape, after all, it was the trip a young J.R.R made to the country that fuelled much of the creation for his Middle Earth.
]]>It’s easy to follow Tolkien’s imagination through the beautiful Swiss landscape, after all, it was the trip a young J.R.R made to the country that fuelled much of the creation for his Middle Earth.
In 1911, aged 19 and prior to the outbreak of WW1, John travelled in a party of 12 from Interlaken to Zermatt. In later letters to his son he would recount that his own journey mirrored Bilbo’s and some of the more practical events even featured in ‘The Hobbit’ (though gladly, not the goblins!).
Much of the path trodden by hobbits, elves, dwarves and men can be discovered on the trail through Bernese Oberland & Tolkien incorporated not just the landscape, but the deep mythology of the country to his works.
The visiting Dwarves
A staple in germanic mythology, Switzerland has an abundance and variety of them! During the time that parts of, what is now Switzerland, were inhabited by Germanic tribes the regular kind likely took the form of dwarfs as known to us through Norse mythology and closer to the kind to have featured in the works of Tolkien.
Today however they’re known as more cheery and helpful, aiding with cattle and producing magical cheeses. Unlike Bilbo’s visitors, they’re more likely to bring food than to clear out the pantry, though dairy farmer leave a small piece of cheese left over for them to use to grow the next one!
You might associate the image of modern Swiss dwarfs more with a ‘garden gnome’ than a dwarf for they’re small and often depicted with smiling faces, long white beards, green cloaks and a red hat (interestingly ‘gnomes’ are actually naughtier versions of dwarfs here who cause mischief & mishaps).
In either the older version or tamer modern version (where they’ve likely been blended with the germanic concept of land spirits) they’re known to live in the ground and be very much of the earth & no doubt the mountain varieties are hardier..
There is in fact one very hardy mountain variation: the Barbegazi! These dwarves have the same long white beards, but have also evolved thick white fur to cope with the Alpine cold. They’re said to hibernate through summer underground and to have super large feet which they use to ski down the mountain, particularly enjoying avalanches.
The Road to Rivendell
Lauterbrunnen is certainly home to Elves. A beautiful place of peace and sanctuary before the mountains, veiled by waterfalls, you can see the exact landscape come alive with Elrond’s kin in illustrations accompanying Tolkien’s archives.
According to Tolkien’s letters he would have arrived to Lauterbrunnen after a gruelling long hike from Interlaken, so the sense of relief he felt was likely akin to that of Bilbo!
A potential contributor for the inspiration for the approach to Rivendell is the deep river gorges like Aareschlucht enroute to Meiringen. Filled with a network of tunnels and caves in steep walls that were actively used during both world wars and still have active purposes today.
As for the glacial river that formed the gorges, it’s known to suddenly and rapidly rise up; a great defence against black riders.
The Misty Mountains
“I left the view of Jungfrau with deep regret: eternal snow, etched as it seemed against eternal sunshine, and the Silberhorn sharp against dark blue: the Silvertine (Celebdil) of my dreams.” A letter from J.R.R to his son Michael.
The peaks certainly left an impression on Tolkien who would later populate their depths with a city of dwarves, armies of occupying goblins, Gollum and a Balrog whom Gandalf would slay atop the snowy pyramid peak of Silberhorn.
Flaming demons aside, some of Tolkien’s smaller mishaps also featured.
“From Rivendell to the other side of the Misty Mountains, the journey... including the glissade down the slithering stones into the pine woods... is based on my adventures in Switzerland in 1911.”
Seeking shelter from a thunder storm in a cattle shed is believed to be inspiration for the circumstances in which Bilbo’s party were ambushed by goblins and a near brush with a landslide gave rise to their hasty and painful descent down the mountains before meeting an interesting host..
Beorn
The most commonly known inspiration for the giant honey-eating man who transformed into a bear is found in the saga of Hrólfr (Rolf) Kraki. This Scandinavian text was certainly down to Tolkien, an expert on lore, as was the other most cited possible inspiration ‘Beowulf’.
But the most often overlooked explanation also bears resemblance. Tolkien wandered mostly in the canton of Bern, literally ‘Bear’. The flag is a bear, everywhere is called ‘Bären’ meaning ‘bear’ in German and at the time of Tolkien’s visit it still contained living bears. Now having also met some of the huge mountain men of the Alps it certainly wouldn’t take much of a stretch of the imagination for them to transform into bears themselves.
Whats more is the religious history of the formerly Celtic region. In the local Celtic mythology & later Gallo-Roman beliefs, the bear goddess Artio was a woman who transformed into a giant bear. She was certainly worshiped in Bern as late as the 2nd century AD which a bronze figure set found in the canton and featuring her is dated to.
It’s likely that Tolkien stitched many similarities together to create Beorn but he is certainly at home here.
The Lonely Mountain
Tolkien might not have visited it but the great mountain Pilatus, a near single peak steeped in myths of dragons could well be a fit for the home of Smaug.
There are several different dragon myths recorded so fortunately for locals the dragons of Pilatus aren’t ruinous but instead have healing powers. The most trouble they cause is ferocious thunder storms or rather large frights! In the Summer of 1421 it is recorded that one farmer Stempflin saw such a dragon fall flaming to the ground landing right next to him, but all that was left on impact was a stone. The Dragon stone was legally declared as having healing powers in 1509 and still sits in the museum in Luzern today.
Interlaken, where Tolkien did visit is a more likely inspiration for his Lake Town, but more suited perhaps is Luzern with its famous wooden bridges and lake location under the shadow of the great cloud gathering peak and its dragons.
Swiss nature is certainly something to experience first hand and like Tolkien millions are captivated and inspired to flights of fantasy and delight. From dwarves to dragons under towering mountains, you might feel as small as a hobbit after following this route!
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