LYON AND VIENNE 

The Pre-Christian Roman Theaters And Odeons 

In speaking with a friend, some interesting and basic ideas came out concerning the most precise and beautiful of Roman cum Greek structures; their semi-circular amphitheaters. In those built with the greatest exactitude, like the odeon at Lyon, France the shape of the theater forms a perfect semi-circle of tiered rows of seats which radiate from a central focus point. The discussion related to this point of focus and how it was actually used in a space of initiation/transformation. It's possible to locate this exact point and thereby demonstrate the principle to oneself.

Contrary to modern and conventional ancient ideas concerning the odeons, these places were not at all designed for popular entertainment (which is the disuse they eventually fell into), but for the conscious transformation en-masse, of an entire school of prepared initiates into a more profound depth and breadth of being conscious. The means utilized in the odeons was via sound. The master invocational key was/is known as The Sound Of Silence.

The tiers of seats were like notes on a piano. Those closest to center were of the highest pitch; those closest to the circumference were of the lowest. One primary formation had the semi-circle divided in half. Each half would represent either an active or passive series of sounds to be produced. The singing or chanting of the choir would follow a specified formula. The sounds on one side would cancel the sounds coming from the adjacent quarter. The master would stand at exact center in the point of focus. SHe would listen to the balance between the active/passive sounds. At critical points, the master would interject a balancing sound into the already existing frequencies. This interjection would completely smooth and balance any disharmony while at the same time introducing a new element to the tonality. This tonality would then be the new course along which the choir would direct its energies; somewhat like a course correction is applied in space flight navigation. Each of these corrections would correspond to a jump in how each of the members, individually and as a whole were conscious at that moment. Eventually certain plateaus of being conscious could be stabilized. This occurred when any fluctuations of a specific order of intensity and duration would completely cancel out, shifting the entire spectrum into a new range of tonalities, harmonics and sub-harmonics.

The shift in the outwardly perceivable sound was accompanied by a parallel in being conscious. Gradually all gross sounds would fade away, and only the simultaneous breathing in-out/out-in of an entire unified composite cell could be heard. This sound would also recede to zero and then only a heartbeat could be distinguished. This eventually flowed into the thrumming/humming sound of what registers as blood coursing through the veins. Each of these changes would have a silence between, which would then pass into the next series of impressions. From ultra-high ringings to noises of random crackling to infra-low rumblings. When these sorts of spasmings between sound and silence altogether ceased, there would reign an inutterable peace. The multitude would now have been fused into one inseparably conscious being. On their own scale, the little "atoms" which had begun the singing would now be transmuted into an infinitely greater atom of being conscious, each component being equally all the others without having lost its own uniqueness of indivisibility. This indivisibility does not refer to some sort of independent, isolated entity, but rather to unified unbroken consciousness without a trace of fragmentation. In this realm of possibility the entire multi-aspected being could be completely reconstructed from any one of its units (somewhat in the way a yeast colony is produced from a single cell or how any point of vibration on a smooth ocean can generate a multitude of waves). The scale of being would manifest whatever possibilities were inherent to being conscious as such. Etcetera


 
 
 
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