These reflections are intended as an exploration of ROC’s talks on Music, and comments from Craig Gibsone during the Celebrations of the Founders during the 60th Birthday events in November 2022.

ROC as Musician

It is well noted that ROC took a degree in Music following the First World War and had a minor career as a concert pianist. What is less well known is that in the early days of the Findhorn Community a grand piano was housed in the Sanctuary and ROC would give recitals there also.

In the video extract Craig Gibsone tells us there was also a gramophone and that certain music was banned from being played in the Sanctuary. Craig mentions specifically Black Magic Woman by Santana, which features a virtuoso guitar performance, and the Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd. I don’t know whether it was as a response to these that ROC spoke to the community about music, and its destructive as well as its constructive use. Not being a party to those talks first hand I cannot say whether he was questioned further on the topic.

The Devil’s Music

Those with a longer memory will recall that Rock ’n’ Roll had been dubbed the ‘Devil’s music’ by certain evangelical movements in America. It cannot be ascertained at present as to whether those outspoken critics of the new youth medium had ever listened to any of the music they so roundly condemned. What is clear is that ROC was especially interested in experimental classical music including Stockhausen, at a time when music was trying to discover a way forward.

What is also clear is that the barriers between ‘classical music’ and pop music were being broken down. Besides the inclusion of classical pieces by such groups as Nice and Procol Harem, esteemed musicians were speaking out about the arbitrary division of music into the much used categories with the judgements that accompanied them. Pop music was considered light, bright and trivial. Classical music was considered serious music, an intellectual form of music, and therefore superior. What was not considered was that classical music, as an art form to be appreciated for itself – and not to be danced or marched to – was a recent thing barely a century old in the 1960s.

Breaking Down Thoughtforms

Among the esotericists it was well understood that the old thought forms had to be broken down, and were being broken down. But this was not coming from inside the classical music where ‘intellectual music’ such as Stockhausen and Shostakovitch were replacing the harmonic composers of Rachmaninov, Debussy and Ravel, not to mention the earlier composers of Beethoven, Mozart and Bach. Indeed Bach had lain idle for many decades before being ‘discovered’ by the music recording industry and ‘restored’ to a popularity it had never before seen.

Changing Music, Changing Minds

During the 1960s new electronic amplification and sound production were in their infancy. It took the genius of Moog to develop a new instrument which served as the basis for many explorations into synthesised sound. One of the debates of the age was the use of a keyboard which inevitably forced the player to use the tempered scale developed by Western music. At the same time music and classical traditions were being introduced to the western ear, including the ground breaking work of Alain Danielou, an Indophile dancer from Paris, who encouraged Ravi Shankar to demonstrate Indian classical music to the West. Danielou went on to establish the United Nations library of traditional music, the UNESCO collection of which he was director.

What is Evil?

For ROC’s ears, founded on a classical education and 19th century values, modern music with its extraordinary power was clearly destructive. This he equated with evil. But centuries before Proclus had explained that evil, if such a thing existed at all, was not the product of a malign intelligence, but rather a stage of transition in which the old form was breaking down and the new form slowly revealing itself.
We would never call a chrysalis an evil thing. Yet such was the condemnation of the new music, once more in the hands of the people, and not under the control of the recording industry or ‘the establishment’, that it was declared a temptation to resist. After all the Rolling Stones, long haired druggie types, had released an album called ‘Their Satanic Majesties Request’ and followed it with a track on their next LP called ‘Sympathy for the Devil’.

Looking Back

Today we find a very different mindset regarding music. The classical form still finds its adherents and exponents, but the great divide between classical and popular music no longer holds so much attention. No small part of the transition from 19th to 20th century values, and the current perspective – inclusiveness, sexual freedom, independently minded choices and so on – is due to the challenges on those traditional values which were outmoded and just plain dishonest. We cannot put this solely on popular music, and rock music in particular, many factors were involved. But the new music that exploded into the 60s and still holds its place today, was certainly among the voices calling for change.