The Power of Music in Ritual

Exc.^.. Bro.^.. Aksel Suvari 18°

Date Published: 3/20/2025                        

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Music is a particularly potent tool for the proper conduct of Masonic ritual. Without it, the high drama of Masonic ceremony would be impossible. Is music essential to a proper experience of the Mysteries?

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Music is a moral law. It gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, and life to everything. It is the essence of order, and leads to all that is good, just and beautiful, of which it is the invisible, but nevertheless dazzling, passionate, and eternal form

-Plato

The most primal instinct of human beings is to sing and dance. As anyone who has spent any time around an infant will know, long before our consciousness has developed speech and rational thought, we are dancers and singers. Music flows from us and is inevitably followed by dance – for the two impulses cannot be separated. Every form of primitive religion and culture uses these twin tools to establish patterns of thinking and of communicating with the gods. Whether songs of grief to mourn the passing of a fellow creature or rain dances or other such attempts to commune with nature, all of civilization begins in song and dance. Masonic ritual, itself a microcosmic representation of civilization, is also  composed of song and dance. Not only by the hymns we sing and our ritual movements around the altar but also in the rhythms and melodies of Nature that are incorporated into the layout of our Lodges and the structure of our ceremonies. For centuries before the invention of writing and even long afterwards, song has been the primary means of conveying history and legend. Without music we would not know who we are. 

As our rituals are a microcosm of civilization, it is necessary that they begin with music. The reason for this is very simple. Music is the most accessible and easily produced method of changing our consciousness. All rituals are an attempt at altering our state of consciousness – to think differently, to feel for one another in ways we have not before and to consider problems from perspectives we were previously incapable of. In order to do this, rituals must affect our symbolic consciousness, the area of our mind that interprets with abstract thought the sensations we receive from objective reality. Our symbolic consciousness is developed by sound. We learn to listen and to speak long before we learn to read and to reason and because of this, music can bypass the filters of our rational mind and directly interact with our symbolic consciousness. Music blends emotion, memory and symbolism. It evokes emotions within us, it can summon – almost by magic – emotional responses that have nothing to do with our present state of being. It is one of the most powerful tools by which to assist with the alteration of consciousness. How often has a piece of music transported you in your mind to a place outside space or time? To a memory long forgotten until its was brought forth once more by a song or piece of music that opened your heart?

Music has the power to alter consciousness by creating changes in our neurochemistry. Listening to personally important pieces of music will trigger the release of dopamine and serotonin, powerful neurochemical mood regulators that can have a dramatic impact on the way we perceive and react to certain stimulus. Tense, dark, or emotionally depressing music can release adrenaline and epinephrine – heightening feelings of sadness and dread.  Masonic rituals, especially the ceremonies of the Blue Lodge, are dramatic events where the candidate is moved from stimulus to stimulus in order to evoke certain responses. There are two examples from the ceremony of Initiation that are particularly potent: the First Symbolic Journey and the Passing of the Bags. At the beginning of the First Symbolic Journey, the Neophyte has so far experienced the Lodge in relative quiet. He has been spoken to, he has spoken and there will have been soft background music played throughout. The mood will be solemn and somber but certainly not loud or chaotic. As he takes his first step on his journey, however, a gong is struck with force, the music changes darkly and dramatically and the room erupts in unseen sounds. This has a jarring effect, like having a rug pulled out from under you or feeling for a step that isn’t there, it is unsettling to the consciousness and reminds the Neophyte that he cannot expect anything to be certain from this point forward and reaffirms that he is not in control. This sensory overload is key at this particular moment in the ritual to reinforce the fact that he has crossed from his everyday existence into the unknown. When the Bag of Benevolence is passed at the conclusion of his ceremony the Neophyte is again dramatically moved from one state of consciousness to another by the use of music. His Light has been restored, he has some sense of what is going on and can feel the end of his ordeal approaching. As the Bags are passed joyful classical music is played, imparting feelings of celebration and happiness. All seems well and the Neophyte prepares to imitate the actions of the other Brothers but begins to worry as the Bag approaches him and he realizes he cannot act as everyone else does. Then the music fades, silence returns and the gaze of the Almoner and the Brethren of the Lodge once more returns to him, with no music for comfort and no place to escape to. In this case, the sudden lack of music dramatically alters the consciousness of the initiate that the lesson of Charity may be well and truly imprinted upon him. 

Masonic ritual is filled with such moments of high drama that are accentuated by the proper use of music. Whether it is primal instinct, lofty emotions and sentiments or terror and dread that must be invoked, without music the ritual is considerably reduced in power. The aim of ritual is to use repetitive motions, actions and practices to establish certain truths and perspectives in the minds of its practitioners. In accomplishing this, music is an essential tool. Music is a store of memory, not only of our personal memory but of the memories of those who have sung the same songs in ages past, loved them, venerated them and cherished them. It is my belief that our thoughts and feelings are tangible things with weight and impact. We cannot see them, taste them or touch them but who would deny the reality of our feelings? Of our emotions and inspirations? I believe that these are as real as any material forms and that music, particularly holy music such as the hymns sung in Lodges, Churches, Temples and Mosques, and the music that is used over and over again in Masonic Ritual, absorbs these feelings, emotions and intentions like a sponge. When a song is sung millions of times, by millions of people across hundreds of years that cannot help but add something to that song. I believe the effect is subtle yet very real and it is this effect that gives certain forms of music an innate reverence that can be felt even upon hearing it for the first time. What is it that makes the Moonlight Sonata or the 9th Symphony more powerful than the latest pop music offering? It is not only a more sophisticated composition but also the feelings and emotions that have been stored in these pieces over centuries that gives them weight and gravity. 

Finally, it is music that allows us to dance. Dance is the inevitable consequence of music, whether it is the tapping of a hand or foot, the nodding of your head or waltzes, marches, tangos or any of the other myriad forms of dance that human beings have invented. Dance is the physical embodiment of the rhythm that is described by music - the movement of Plato’s “moral law”. Without music, ritual is a series of mere movements and speeches but when infused with music, with the spirit of Nature and the creative, symbolic language of humanity, it becomes a dance. It is then that the Deacons become graceful and acrobatic, fulfilling their duties with poise and dignity. It is then that the formal movements and signs of the Wardens become solemn and grand. It is only then that Lodge truly becomes alive, for all living things sing songs and make music, whether we can hear it or not. The plants sing, the birds sing, the oceans sing, the very Earth itself is constantly making music and projecting it into the depths of space. We humans, when we first awoke to our lonely position in the cosmos, began to sing – both to comfort ourselves and to make our mark on a world we found to be beautiful and worthy of celebration. Ritual, Masonic or otherwise, is the attempt by human beings to mimic, refine and perfect those patterns that we have observed in Nature. It is then essential that music be used to convey these messages as the natural world is but one infinite song and dance, infinite rhythmic structures with individual melodies emerging and falling away like the individual human lives that brighten or darken this world for a short time until they pass. We are, each of us, notes in this grand orchestral symphony of life and by harnessing, channeling and engaging in the majestic music of the Universe here on Earth, in our Lodges and in our hearts, we can truly begin to sing.