Spiritual/Religious Experience in Progressive Rock |
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Hercules
Prog Reviewer Joined: June 14 2007 Location: Near York UK Status: Offline Points: 7024 |
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I was lucky enough to get a post-doctoral research place at St Andrews in 1975, which was (for me) perfection. I spent 7 years there before getting a lecturer's post elsewhere. But my days at St Andrews were the best, drinking Belhaven real ale in the Brownhills House Hotel (now long gone), walking on the West Sands, doing the May Revels and many other things. My biggest regret was missing out on the Raisin celebrations, since I wasn't an undergrad there. I really wish I'd gone there instead of Cambridge, which I didn't enjoy. I saw Caravan, Gryphon (on their last tour before they split), Horslips (had to get a friend from Dundee U to get me into their SU ball for that one!), Five Hand Reel (not prog but folk rock, but amazing). The University was always too small to attract the bigger bands, but I saw a lot of great bands in Edinburgh and Glasgow (Rush, Camel, Horslips, Yes/Gryphon). I go on holiday to St Andrews occasionally and it always feels like I'm coming home. I will happily do your survey, but I'm peer reviewing a friend's research paper at the moment, so it may be a few days.
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A TVR is not a car. It's a way of life.
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BaldFriede
Prog Reviewer Joined: June 02 2005 Location: Germany Status: Offline Points: 10261 |
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My wife BaldJean and I will gladly take your survey.
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BaldJean and I; I am the one in blue. |
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BillieJane
Forum Newbie Joined: November 27 2017 Location: St Andrews Status: Offline Points: 37 |
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Thanks so much Friede! Lovely to meet you. |
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BillieJane
Forum Newbie Joined: November 27 2017 Location: St Andrews Status: Offline Points: 37 |
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That music sounds awesome. And thank you very much for taking part! Really appreciated. |
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BillieJane
Forum Newbie Joined: November 27 2017 Location: St Andrews Status: Offline Points: 37 |
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Definitely! Thank you! |
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BillieJane
Forum Newbie Joined: November 27 2017 Location: St Andrews Status: Offline Points: 37 |
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Thanks so much! Hugely appreciated. |
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Tapfret
Special Collaborator Honorary Collaborator / Retired Admin Joined: August 12 2007 Location: Bryant, Wa Status: Offline Points: 8577 |
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Definitely live for the "religious experience". I appreciated them, but not a die hard fan until seeing them in San Francisco in '99. There is something very transcendent about their presence on stage. I never miss a chance to see them. As far as albums, Ëmëhntëhtt-Ré has the studio representation that I feel is closest to that live experience. But really, if you can't get to one of their shows, get the Theusz Hamtaahk - Trilogie Au Trianon DVD. Oh, and I will take your survey soon. There are very few places in life that have any sort of spiritual connectivity to me. Music, namely progressive music, is one. Edited by Tapfret - July 04 2018 at 10:17 |
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Rednight
Forum Senior Member Joined: January 18 2014 Location: Mar Vista, CA Status: Offline Points: 4807 |
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Hearing U.K. perform Alaska at the San Diego Sports Arena and then a couple of nights later at the Santa Monica Civic back in '79 was just about the heaviest religious experiences I've ever had.
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"It just has none of the qualities of your work that I find interesting. Abandon [?] it." - Eno
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dr wu23
Forum Senior Member Joined: August 22 2010 Location: Indiana Status: Offline Points: 20500 |
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^Are you sure that wasn't due to the black Lebanese hash...? ;)
To be honest one can find transcendent experiences (the word religious and even spiritual has a lot of baggage) while experiencing many kinds of music as well as art in general. Some pieces of music by Mozart, Bach, and Vaughn Williams has certainly triggered those kind of moods in me and some prog also. But....I suppose the most intense experiences in that area were triggered by various mind altering substances back in the old college days. Two books I found fascinating ..many years ago....that could be related to experiences brought on by listening to music as well as other triggers : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Varieties_of_Religious_Experience https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Consciousness |
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One does nothing yet nothing is left undone.
Haquin |
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BaldJean
Prog Reviewer Joined: May 28 2005 Location: Germany Status: Offline Points: 10377 |
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I have taken your survey; Friede will do it later (she is currently with her nose deep in a book and can't be disturbed)
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A shot of me as High Priestess of Gaia during our fall festival. Ceterum censeo principiis obsta |
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Mormegil
Forum Senior Member Joined: January 03 2010 Location: NE PA Status: Offline Points: 6505 |
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Just finished the survey. Best of luck, Kimberley!
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Welcome to the middle of the film.
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Guldbamsen
Special Collaborator Retired Admin Joined: January 22 2009 Location: Magic Theatre Status: Offline Points: 23098 |
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I'll be sure to pop by your survey even if I don't consider myself either religious or spiritual. Music though has a way of hitting you hard whenever one is up for it. I've always thought the experience had more to do with the listener being open at the time rather than having to do with a specific style of music. I get goosebumps and inner voyages to rock, pop, jazz, electronic, prog, blues, funk and classical. It's all about the time and place - plus all kinds of music can be progressive.
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“The Guide says there is an art to flying or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.”
- Douglas Adams |
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Progosopher
Forum Senior Member Joined: May 12 2009 Location: Coolwood Status: Offline Points: 6401 |
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Great idea,Kimberly! I have an M.A. in Religious Studies, so this is right up my alley. Super busy at the moment though: I will take the survey when I get a chance. Good luck, and I hope you get lots of responses.
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The world of sound is certainly capable of infinite variety and, were our sense developed, of infinite extensions. -- George Santayana, "The Sense of Beauty"
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hieronymous
Forum Senior Member Joined: December 27 2012 Location: Oakland, CA Status: Offline Points: 308 |
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I took the survey - very interesting, allowed me to dig into my memories of some important events in my life.
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Logan
Forum & Site Admin Group Site Admin Joined: April 05 2006 Location: Vancouver, BC Status: Offline Points: 33095 |
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That's much the same that I feel. ---------------------------------------------------- In the kinds of music we have in ProgArchives, I am more likely to experience something that can feel transcendental when listening to Progressive Electronic, Krautrock and Indo-Prog Raga Rock (plus some Zeuhl) than in most other categories (it's those "inner voyages"). I used to think of myself as spiritual while having a form of negative, or soft, atheism (or agnostic depending upon one's parameters). I do consider myself to be a cultural Christian (or cultural Anglican), and am attracted to various aspects of Buddhism. The most transcendent music for me has not been Prog, but classical/ art music. Tallis moves me much more than anything Neal Morse, and, say, Torman Maxt could not hold a candle to Bach or Beethoven when it comes to deep, sublime, and meaningful to me music. Yes can have a New-Agey feel, but it tends to strike me as rather shallow, but that doesn't mean that people don't experience the music in deeply personal and "mystical" ways. Profundity is so personal. Magma has been mentioned, and for me that band can reach quite sublime heights. Popol Vuh and Yatha Sidhra are two that really speak to me. Different music speaks to different people, and different music speaks to me depending on my mood and current interests. Perhaps one day you'll edit and add to your thesis and publish it so that we can all read it. Best of luck. |
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Just a music fan passing through trying to fill some void. Various music I am into now: a youtube playlist
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Evolver
Special Collaborator Crossover & JR/F/Canterbury Teams Joined: October 22 2005 Location: The Idiocracy Status: Offline Points: 5482 |
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I took the survey.
I have no religious or spiritual feelings about what prog rock does for me, but I have frequently thought about what makes so many incredibly talented musicians (or artists in general) become religious. In fact, I've written, but never performed or recorded, a song about just that.
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Trust me. I know what I'm doing.
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Guldbamsen
Special Collaborator Retired Admin Joined: January 22 2009 Location: Magic Theatre Status: Offline Points: 23098 |
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^^Hi Greg, nice talking to you again.
You mention a lot of the same music that I want to mention in particular A Meditation Mass which encapsulates a special reverence to these ears...then again I get the same kind of transcendental feel (great word btw and transcendental also better connects with me) from Bobby Beausoleil's Lucifer Rising. This all actually concerns the absolute core of my love for music. David Gilmour was the first person ever to introduce me to this earthshattering experience...and he didn't even know hah! Nah but Comfortably Numb was still the first piece of music that catapulted me into that special place where time seizes to exist and you're one with everything...or something to that effect. I remember one time I saw an interview with Carlos Santana talking about the power of music and those special times where he'd hit the right notes, at the right time, with sheer brute emotional force, and to some it was like touching god or maybe making love to the most beautiful woman in the world. I am paraphrasing here but I remember the gist of it perfectly and I happen to agree with him. We are most likely experiencing a lot of the same things here, but I think culture and upbringing has a lot to do with how we process these things afterwards. Personally I'd like to keep as agnostic a view as my logic allows me to have. On a little sidenote: as a man who has lived his whole life with a mild form of synestesia, it is remarkable how much music can transform in front of (or in my case behind) my eyes. Depending on the day, year, what I was going through etc etc the same music would change forms and colours, though still keeping its...erm natural presence. It is hard to describe but imagine a criss cross between sun dots and twirling cigarette smoke 'miming' the music and you're halfway there. The other more interesting thing about this little "wiring gone crazy" of mine is that it can heighten my awareness and effectively make me feel like I hear EVERYTHING and it almost gets to be too much - in fact it always reminds me of the same dream I always have when I have a fever: like being engulfed in a black hole. Sorta like this freakish implosion of the mind. Then again go back far enough and that's how we all started. We're made of the same star stuff. Who knows what strange proporties our minds have? That's also the beauty of it. We know next to nothing about how our own brains work. We have ideas sure, but generally speaking we're still at the very early stages of understanding the billions of connections that constitute our mental highway. That is also why the whole robot/AI scare is such bs. We haven't even figured out how and where emotions form - we even have trouble saying what they are from a scientic point of view, so how on earth are we going to 'learn' the robots? On the other hand, and back to patterned sound again, who knows, maybe when we get these 'soul orgasms' in music we inadvertantly turn on a special feature in our brains that allow us to make long distance cosmic telephone calls. Dial up Orion's Belt on a tuesday for starters! Hah! I rambled. Sorry if the sense is missing. It rang true in my head. Oh and I wish you the best of luck on your thesis Kimberley. It sounds like a very interesting read. Edited by Guldbamsen - July 05 2018 at 15:24 |
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“The Guide says there is an art to flying or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.”
- Douglas Adams |
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Logan
Forum & Site Admin Group Site Admin Joined: April 05 2006 Location: Vancouver, BC Status: Offline Points: 33095 |
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Hi David,
If that's rambling, my longish posts are pure diarrhoea. Apparent digressions are often where the most interesting thoughts and insights lie, methinks. T all makes sense to me. I almost mentioned Lucifer Rising in my post, but then I was going to say something about the man's history and decided not to. It gives me that feeling too. I didn't know you have mild synaesthesia; I do too. I expect that various of the world's mystics and prophets' brains were also wired a little differently. Incidentally, side-note, while I like to consider myself to be a rationalist, and a humanist, and I don't feel the need for supernatural belief systems, I understand that religion and spirituality can inspire music, and one can get this mystical/ spiritual/ transcendent type experience when listening to music. Of course people will interpret their reactions differently and call t different things. The brain does still work in mysterious ways, we still don't have a definitive grasp of consciousness, but we are learning more all the time. I've had this amazing sense of oneness on several occasions, but I put down to my neurology even there is a natural interconnectedness to the universe/s, but I digress. Dirk Gently (the holistic detective) gets it. I'm pretty open-minded about many things, just not so open-minded that my brain falls out. To paraphrase Plato (as Socrates), the first step on the road to wisdom is the recognition of one's own ignorance. |
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Just a music fan passing through trying to fill some void. Various music I am into now: a youtube playlist
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Guldbamsen
Special Collaborator Retired Admin Joined: January 22 2009 Location: Magic Theatre Status: Offline Points: 23098 |
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I'm with you all the way. It's just that I've always had an overriding urge to put everything on its head. Even when I was a little kid I had long mind breaks thinking about how weird it would be if 'life' wasn't what we understood it to be and that mountains all of this time had been talking behind our backs? I once thought long and hard about the sea perhaps inhabited the wisest of creatures and that we just hadn't figured out the lingo yet. Maybe aliens had been to earth and they'd just had a chat with some spermwhales. Growing older and oddly enough much more enamoured with logic, science and Occam's razor...I still purposely fling out wild "theories" about life, the universe and everything like bon bons I entirely blame Monty Python and Douglas Adams. |
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“The Guide says there is an art to flying or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.”
- Douglas Adams |
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hieronymous
Forum Senior Member Joined: December 27 2012 Location: Oakland, CA Status: Offline Points: 308 |
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Been thinking about this stuff since taking the survey this morning!
I realized that so much of music for me has been "visual" in the sense that I often visualize things during the music. Early on it may have been encouraged by 1) seeing Fantasia at a young age with my father, 2) the Star Wars soundtrack which allowed me to relive the excitement of the movie at home (before home video!), 3) getting into rock music in 7th grade and imagining that I was the one playing the music (I started playing guitar and bass around the same time). I don't imagine myself being the performer so much anymore, but still engage in reverie as I listen to music. I think that's maybe why I prefer instrumental music, and don't really pay attention to lyrics - they get in the way for me!
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