Annie Besant

As the more delicate and finer sequences of sounds are produced in music, the subtle body is affected in its finer grades of matter, and similarly more massive harmonics affect the coarser grades. Hence, when this is thoroughly understood, as by a trained occultist, the vibrations can be chosen with reference to the results they produce, and we have the science of mantras, while people of lesser knowledge can produce lesser results. Emotions of any grade can thus be initiated or stimulated, and as the music is made to express finer and finer emotions, especially those of self-sacrificing love and self-surrendering devotion, responsive, sympathetic thrilling may be set up in the buddhic body — the ânanda-maya-kosha — and, lifted on the wings of the vibrations that are music, a man may reach the threshold of the spiritual world. Thus, music subserves religion both in eastern and western lands. In the West, the greatest musicians have strained their powers to express in sequences of sounds the highest emotions of man [and even animals and plants], and if you have ever the opportunity of listening to one of the Masses written by the noblest Western masters of the divine art, you will find that, though you may be ignorant of Latin and unaccustomed to the use of chords, the charm of the music will gradually steal over you, you will feel soothed and quieted, apt for meditation, and perhaps your eyes will fill with tears. . . .