Philip K. Dick on Music

Posted on November 24, 2011 by admin

Music is normally a temporal process, but Beethoven, uniquely, uses it to enclose space, the most vast volume of space possible. Thus Beethoven literally expanded the hologram for anyone understanding his music, and he was part of a historic movement involving the abrupt evolution of the human being in terms of
so-to-speak relative size vis-à-vis his reality. This is the inner firmament of Bruno (or Paracelsus—whichever). Ah! The microcosm is transformed briefly into the macrocosm; and a slight but permanent expansion of the person, the microcosm, occurs: perhaps an altered relationship to the macrocosm, in terms of identity. Beethoven’s music as a means by which the alchemical Verklärung can take place: thus it is directly related to the Hermetics.
…
This is a radically different way of experiencing the self (microcosm) and reality (macrocosm). Memory and inner space. There is some relationship. Memory involves vastly augmented time which is then converted into space.

-Philip K. Dick, The Exegesis

Related posts:

  1. William Burroughs and Jimmy Page talk music & magic
  2. Philip K. Nixon’s Raid0Kaos (so far…)
  3. Musical training offsets memory-loss & effects of aging
This entry was posted in Sound and tagged . Bookmark the permalink.

Comments are closed.