The Voice of the Silence: Seven Mystic Sounds

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky · Higher Ethics and Devotion Series · 17 pages

A seventeen-page treatment of one passage from The Voice of the Silence — the seven mystic sounds — opened by an abstract and train of thoughts that gives each sound its own heading and page. The complete Voice of the Silence is held separately in this section, so this file works as a magnifying glass on a single page of it.

The premise stated at the head is that the seven sounds are stages of inner development rather than a poetic figure, and the file takes them in order. The first is like the nightingale's sweet voice chanting a song of parting to its mate. The second comes as the sound of a silver cymbal of the Dhyanis awakening the twinkling stars, and the commentary attached introduces the image the whole file returns to — that the body is an Aeolian harp chorded with two sets of strings, one of pure silver and the other of catgut. The third is the plaint melodious of the ocean-sprite imprisoned in its shell, glossed as the Voice of Divine Wisdom and the last word of the Secret Doctrine. The fourth is the chant of the Vina, said to attune fellow disciples to the harmonies of wisdom, with the observation that even a sleeper's memory is like a seven-stringed Aeolian harp over which the mind sweeps. The fifth shrills like a bamboo flute and bestows knowledge of the mysteries and secrets of initiation. The sixth changes to a trumpet-blast, beckoning the Dragon of Esoteric Wisdom out of darkness. Taking a single sentence and expanding it across seventeen pages is unusual even in this library, and it makes the file a companion to the complete text rather than an alternative to it.

Read the full text (PDF, 1.1 MB, 17 pages)