source file: mills2.txt Date: Sat, 29 Mar 1997 10:45:41 -0800 Subject: Metaphysics and music From: John Chalmers Because I am staying at my mother's home in Rancho Santa Fe, I've been bombarded with news reports of the mass suicide a few miles away. I've not failed to notice the musical symbolism associated with the cult. Ti and Do are plausibly solfe'ge syllables and the names used by some members ending in -ody are probably coined in imitation of melody, rhapsody, etc. where the -ody element from a Greek word for song. I can't say whether there is further significance to Ti and Do related to their scalar roles as leading tone and tonic. All of this is consistent with Applewhite having been a music teacher in Houston, TX in the late 60's and early 70's, before my arrival there from NJ. Anyway, I hope this sad incident serves to caution all of us not to take metaphysics, musical or otherwise, too far. On that note (NPI), I've collected some more information about critics of Gauquelin's "astrobiology" and am having a friend in Seattle enquire about an alleged Department of Paraphysics and Parapsychology at the University of Washington i and will forward it off-list to the interested parties. I agree with Brian Belet that metaphysics, however interesting, is off-topic for this list. --John Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Sat, 29 Mar 1997 22:11 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA21260; Sat, 29 Mar 1997 22:11:04 +0100 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA21259 Received: from by ella.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) id NAA22859; Sat, 29 Mar 1997 13:08:27 -0800 Date: Sat, 29 Mar 1997 13:08:27 -0800 Message-Id: Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@ella.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@ella.mills.edu