The Singing Fire

Dear co-worker,

From the esoteric perspective, biological life is a musical fire – sound,along with fire, being the underlying features of the substance from which every living creature is made. The origin of this substance is a realm of soniferous fire, and the Earth, along with its inhabitants, are comprised of materials that can be attuned to the fiery sounds that issue forth from these celestial heights. Man, in essence, is a singing fire.

The ongoing descent of ‘celestial fire and sound’ to Earth has an expansive effect on human thought. It is a process that incrementally liberates human consciousness from its imprisonment on the lower planes of the Earth but one that requires ‘right timing’ due to the attendant risks. The Great Invocation, for instance, is a superlative instrument for evoking the descent of fiery sound into human consciousness, but the Spiritual Hierarchy of our planet had to carry out much planning and preparatory work before releasing it to the general public; without this, the premature use of such a great Word of Power may have caused a crisis that distorted rather than enhanced humanity’s perception of reality. Even with the necessary precautions taken, certain risks attended its distribution:
“The primary result of the correct use of the Great Invocation (as far as humanity is concerned) is acceleration. As I have also earlier pointed out, such an acceleration carries with it its own risks, and consequently we have the appearance of the truly terrific problems and the dire happenings which have for many years overtaken the aspirants and the disciples in the world.” ¹

In today’s world, the descent of celestial fire and sound into human consciousness is causing a dramatic increase in the speed of events. There is a sense of time flying by and things spinning out of control. Crises are piling up relentlessly on a national and international level; world karma is intensifying and both the higher and the lower aspects of human nature are being stimulated as never before. Accompanying all this, and arguably causing much of it, is the terrific problem of noise pollution. The acoustic environment that modern societies inhabit is known to have a damaging effect on people’s well-being. A pioneering researcher in this field was the composer and music educator, Ray Murray Schafer, who instigated studies in acoustic ecology and the World Soundscape Project. In a book entitled The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World, he wrote:
“The Industrial Revolution introduced a multitude of new sounds with unhappy consequences for many of the natural and human sounds which they tended to obscure; and this development was extended into a second phase when the Electric Revolution added new effects of its own and introduced devices for packaging sounds and transmitting them schizophonically across time and space to live amplified or multiplied existences. Today the world suffers from an overpopulation of sounds; there is so much acoustic information that little of it can emerge with clarity… If we have a hope of improving the acoustic design of the world, it will be realizable only after the recovery of silence as a positive state in our lives. Still the noise in the mind: that is the first task – then everything else will follow in time…

…all research into sound must conclude with silence – not the silence of negative vacuum, but the positive silence of perfection and fulfillment. Thus, just as man strives for perfection, all sound aspires to the condition of silence, to the eternal life of the Music of the Spheres. Can silence be heard? Yes, if we could extend our consciousness outward to the universe and to eternity, we could hear silence.
Through the practice of contemplation, little by little, the muscles and the mind relax and the whole body opens out to become an ear. When the Indian yogi attains a state of liberation from the senses, he hears the anahata, the ‘unstruck’ sound. Then perfection is achieved. The secret hieroglyph of the Universe is revealed. Number becomes audible and flows down filling the receiver with tones and light.” ²

As Ray Murray Schafer understood:
“when there is no sound, hearing is most alert – Silence is indeed news for those possessing clairaudience.”

As the ‘unstruck’ sounds of the Divine Plan ring throughout the higher planes of being, can we open up towards them as one, united, listening ear? And can we then resonate to the acoustic quality of the Divine Plan in a way that amplifies and relays its ‘sonorous tones of meaning’ deep into the consciousness of the human race? Equally, we can try to generate those fiery sounds within ourselves that can rise up to the ears of the listening Hierarchy and serve the kingdom that they inhabit.
“… sound and fire are closely allied… disciples are gathered by the Masters [of the Wisdom] into Their Ashrams when their sound has gone forth and when the fire that is in them has successfully burned away the intervening barriers between the soul and the personality. Then their sound can safely be added to the sound of the Ashram, enriching its volume, adding quality to its tone, and conveying the needed creative qualities.” ³

The science of sound and fire are an integral part of esoteric study – the Alice Bailey writings indicate that there are twenty-seven occult laws of fire that sum up the basic laws of color and of music and rhythm. While these laws of fire are only revealed after initiation at this stage of evolution, we are told that they will gradually be permitted exoteric publication in the times ahead. Perhaps Rudolf Steiner understood something of these laws, for he taught that the human body is a great musical instrument, with the consonants representing the instrument and the vowels representing the soul playing upon it:
“When we utter the vowel sounds, we press what is living in our soul down into the body; and the body, by adding the consonantal element, does but provide the musical instrument for our soul to use. You will certainly have the feeling that in every vowel there is something of the soul, immediate and living. The vowel can be taken by itself. The consonant on the other hand is perpetually longing for the vowel, tending towards it. The plastic instrument of the body is in fact a dead thing until the vowel nature – the soul – strikes its chords.” ⁴

The outstanding example of this symbolic relationship between vowel and consonant – soul and personality – lies in the Sacred Word:
AUM. is the Word of Glory; it signifies the Word made flesh and the manifestation upon the plane of matter of the second aspect of divinity. ⁵

The Alice Bailey writings consider A.U.M. as the expression of something from which advanced humanity is seeking release, and for them the Sacred Word is better represented as O.M. This can be portrayed as the left-hand symbol below, the letter M representing matter in which the soul, represented by the encircling O, is enmeshed. For the aspirants and disciples of the world, the smaller, decapitalized m indicates the changing dynamic that matter is becoming subordinated to the will of the soul. ⁶

When the Sacred Word is apprehended in this way, we are told that it greatly assists “the second, or Christ aspect of divinity to shine forth resplendently”:
“… By its use the ‘spark’ becomes a radiant light, the light becomes a flame, and the flame eventually becomes a sun… The Word is to be sounded by the soul… on its own plane, and the vibration will subsequently affect the various bodies or vehicles which house that soul… [the aspirant]… in meditation… hears the sound (called sometimes the ‘still small Voice’, or the ‘Voice of the Silence’)… and in deep reflection… assimilates the results of…[the]… soul’s activity.” ⁷

Just as the first sense to evolve in the incarnating soul is hearing (babies having the ability to hear long before they are born), the strike of the soul’s chords, symbolized by the Sacred Word, may be detected through intense listening in the contemplative stage of meditation and the whole of one’s being brought into a state of resonance with the sound that it emits and the meaning that it conveys. The human organism is then transformed into a musical instrument that is constantly, rhythmically, broadcasting the music of the soul and its kingdom into the sphere of human endeavour. The soul’s fiery music is an organizing power forging harmonic lines of relationship wherever it is played, and in our own small way, by each of us becoming instruments of the One Soul, we are slowly but surely furthering the transfiguration of humanity into an organism of fiery sound in the vital body of the Logos.

For spiritual organizations the world over, this transformation is more important than ever as we move towards the higher interlude of 2025 which sees the ending of one stage of endeavour by the Spiritual Hierarchy of our planet and the beginning of another. The closing cycle, technically referred to as ‘The Stage of the Forerunner’, aimed at establishing a path of resonant interplay between the soul kingdom and the human kingdom to prepare for the first stage of the Hierarchy’s externalisation on Earth. While any new dynamic will undoubtedly take many years to establish itself, a fresh impetus may be detectable at a relatively early stage if we can form ourselves into a collective instrument of occult hearing. Sensitivity to the acoustic rhythms of this next stage of activity by the Spiritual Hierarchy and our participation in it through the expression of spiritual fire and sound is surely a goal worthy of our most ardent efforts. As we approach the Three Spiritual Festivals of 2025, may we all play our part in orchestrating the grand symphony of the Divine Plan on Earth – by transforming ourselves into one great chorus of singing fires.

In the companionship of the One Work,
Lucis Trust

1. A.A. Bailey, The Externalisation of the Hierarchy, p.152.
2. The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World, pp.109, 389–90 and 393–394, Kindle Edition.
3. A.A. Bailey, Discipleship in the New Age, Vol II, p.553.
4. Rudolf Steiner, Speech and Song, The Rudolf Steiner Archive
5. A.A. Bailey, The Light of the Soul, p.7.
6. A.A. Bailey, The Rays and the Initiations, pp.53–55.
7. Ibid, p.56, 58 and 60.

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