Music

Wherever the ancient Greeks were when they heard "the music of the spheres," I suspect it was in this life rather than the next. In an out-of-body experience (OBE), it is possible to hear. However, when the mind/spirit/soul is permanently separated from the body (death), there is an oceanic silence that accompanies the absence of all other senses.

The spirit Alexander discovers this for himself when he attends a concert of the Vienna Boys' Choir as a ghost. Noticing that he no longer reacts appropriately to music that used to move him, he eventually realizes that appreciation of music requires an emotional response in the listener, and begins to suspect that what he did hear might have been the result of telepathy.

Music addresses the emotions like no other art form. I discovered in my early years as a flute player that some music is so beautiful that it is possible to make people cry merely by playing it. The first time this happened to me was when I was graduating from high school. I was asked to play a flute solo at the Baccalaureate service. I decided to play the Handel Sonata in G-minor, since I thought that was appropriate for the occasion.

With my piano accompanist at my side, and the graduating seniors sitting at the front of the auditorium, I put the flute to my lips and starting playing. Before long I began hearing stifled sobs. The more sobs I heard, the sweeter my tone became. Finally out of the corner of my eye I could see handkerchiefs waving like flags, and as a counterpoint to the sonata, I could hear what sounded like an ocean of weeping. By the time I finished playing the sonata, there was hardly a dry seat in the house.

However, had anyone in the audience been a disembodied spirit (like Alexander in Chapter 2 of The Passing of Merlin Zauber), there would have been no reaction at all from that entity. You see, to appreciate music requires a live human body with the capacity to feel and sense. Without that, there is no music. That is why I suspect the ancient Greeks were not in the afterlife when they heard "the music of the spheres."