E Pluribus Unum

Oliver Sacks, neurologist and author, has a new book out, Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain -- a book that covers two of my favorite topics. More specifically, Sacks (like Yo-Yo Ma) believes that music is the link between memory and emotion. I believe this as well, and I think that if you stop and ponder it, you probably believe it too. After all, there are certain songs that remind you of your senior year in high school, right?

But Sacks goes beyond that and talks about the spiritual aspect of music (something I've written about here). For Sacks, that's saying a lot, given that he doesn't put any stock in religion (organized or not).

Here's an excerpt of an interview that appears at Wired.com:

Wired: You call yourself an old Jewish atheist in your new book. What is it about music that lends itself to being a catalyst of mystical experience even for people who don't believe in God?

Sacks: Music doesn't represent any tangible, earthly reality. It represents things of the heart, feelings which are beyond description, beyond any experience one has had. The non-representational but indescribably vivid emotional quality is such as to make one think of an immaterial or spiritual world. I dislike both of those words, because for me, the so-called immaterial and spiritual is always vested in the fleshly — in "the holy and glorious flesh," as Dante said. [Note: Dante is another one of my favorites.]

So if music is not directly representative of the world around us, then what's inspiring it? One has the feeling of the muse, and the muses are heavenly beings.

[...]

I intensely dislike any reference to supernaturalism, but I think there can be profound mystical feelings which do not have to call on fictitious agencies like angels and demons and deities. The whole natural world is bathed in wonder and beauty and mystery. The feeling of the holy, the sacred, the wonderful, the mystical, can be divorced from anything theological, and is conveyed very powerfully in music.