The Transcendence of Music

Posted on 04. Jul, 2019, in Christian Values, Community, Music Therapy, SpiritualityComments Off on The Transcendence of Music

In this first of a new two part series, Kevin Jackson, Professor of Business Ethics and Law at Fordham University in New York City, as well as composer and jazz pianist, talks about music as a contemplative journey. He explains to Pat Coyle about how music can link the material world with a deeper spiritual world, and that music takes us on a journey. Under the themes of bridges, butterflies and castles, he explores the power of music and its ability to connect us to a place of transcendence. He draws on images from religious figures like St Theresa of Avila and also Eban Alexendar, a neurologist, who experienced a deep ineffable transformation. Eban fell into a coma for a week and in that time experienced a deeper state of consciousness, which opened him to three primary points, that you are deeply loved, that you have nothing to fear and that you can do no wrong.

Not a particularly religious man himself, he went on to write, “Proof of Heaven – A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife”.  Prof Jackson discusses these deep experiences and sees music as another way to reach the kind of states of consciousness saints have often spoken of and that now neurologists are trying to understand.

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