Mystic Chords: Mysticism and Psychology in Popular Music

English | Publisher: Algora Publishing, 2001 | PDF | 256 pages | 6 MB
Rock and roll, and archetypal symbolism? The same primal source from which mythology, dreams, folk traditions and poetic insight arise must also be the inspirational source for painting, music, literature, and other modes of creative human endeavor. Elitists may dismiss popular entertainment as not properly belonging to this sphere of creative expression, but modern genres such as popular music and film-making deserve their place alongside the recognized works of classical and traditional art forms - as the following pages aim to make clear.

While much of popular music undoubtedly was produced for commercial profit rather than as a means of true expression, many of the genuine pioneers of the rock and roll genre perceived music as a means of connecting with the mystical source of energy and creation that lay within their beings.

Citing John Lennon and Carl Jung, the Upanishads and Schopenhauer, Led Zeppelin and Taoism, Freud, Bob Dylan and Bob Marley, the author aptly makes his case.

Exploring the nexus between mysticism, religion, and psychology, Soni considers topics ranging from archetypes and the collective unconscious, and the hero journey, to the use and effects of psychedelics, Gaia theory, and reincarnation and karma. With an insider's appreciation of Eastern and Western cultural traditions, he shows that mankind's ongoing inquiry into the nature of the self and society and the search for higher meaning are universal, and he shows that many highlights of recent musical history draw on the same primal source from which mythology, dreams, and poetic insight arise.