Dane Rudhyar
1895-1985
"The Happiest Time"
Surviving the crisis Rudhyar soon afterward married Eya Fechin, on June 27, 1945. She was the daughter of the famous Russian painter and all-around man of the plastic arts, Nicolai Fechin. Rudhyar and Eya left California to live in Colorado Springs and, in 1947, in Nambe, New Mexico. These were happy and productive years: "The happiest time of my life - just married to Eya Fechin." A book Modern Man's Conflicts: The Creative Challenge of a Global Society (now long out of print) was written in 1945-46 and published in 1948 by the Philosophical Library in New York.
Series of articles written for the magazines Horoscope and American Astrology during this period have now been revised and are in book form: The Lunation Cycle, The Practice of Astrology, An Astrological Triptych, and Astrological Timing (originally entitled Birth Patterns for a New Humanity). A work attempting to reformulate the basic Images of our Christian-Western
culture was written in 1948. It was later entirely recast in a new style and eventually completed in Switzerland in 1959. First published in a French version by A la Baconniere, Neuchatel under the title Le Roc Enflamme, an English version was printed as Fire Out Of The Stone in 1963.These years were the most productive in the field of painting. Rudhyar loved New Mexico and left the country with much regret. At one time he had planned to build a house near Santa Fe on land bought for him by the composer Charles lves, but hisdivorce interfered. There were several reasons for leaving Nambe. One of them was a meeting with the pianist William Masselos who in 1948, on his own initiative, had discovered the score of Granites (published, together with other works, in the New Music Quarterly started by Henry Cowell during the late twenties). Masselos performed this composition in Albuquerque, New Mexico and became afterward a staunch friend. He told Rudhyar of the interest young musicians in New York were taking in his music as well as his astrological writings, and their desire to meet him. Also Eya, who had been a modern dancer associated with the Los Angeles group of Lester Horton, had just begun a
very interesting form of work dealing with personality-readjustment through basic body-movements (described in a booklet, Eutonics). So she felt the need to study certain aspects of psychology with a sympathetic psychologist. The latter turned out to be the remarkable pioneer in group-therapy and the founder of Psychodrama, Dr. Jacob Moreno.A stay in New York (February-March, 1949) brought many interesting contacts in the musical field, but also the realization that the New Mexico episode had to be concluded. A few paintings were done that summer 1949 while packing all the books, files and belongings for storage in Santa Fe. The early fall saw Rudhyar and his wife once more in New York.
A third creative phase in music began unfolding in 1949 with Tripthong, for pianom and orchestra (1949); a Piano Quintet (1950), subsequently revised and re-scored for chamber orchestra and renamed Dialogues; and Solitude (1950), a brief string quartet version of one of his Tetragrams, the premiere of which was given a remarkable performance on March 17, 1951 by the New Music Quartet at the McMillan Theater of Columbia University.
During the winter 1950 Rudhyar's orchestral work Ouranos and his piano compositions were given at a concert at the Composer's Forum on March 15, 1950 and Maro Ajemian played his Prophetic Rite in April. Eya met Dr. Moreno at that time and decided to study with him at his psychiatric hospital in Beacon, New York. Rudhyar passed this same summer at the MacDowell colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire composing a Quintet for piano and strings. A recital of Rudhyar's music was given in Carnegie Recital Hall (November 13, 1950) with the assistance of William Masselos and Anahid Ajemian, violin. Rudhyar himself performed several of his piano compositions.
The winter 1952 was passed New York city and later in Washington, D.C.. During the summer, a house was rented in Spring Valley, New York within the Threefold Farm estate dedicated to the ideals of the great German philosopher, occultist, educator and creative artist Rudolf Steiner.
The failure of Modern Astrology magazine, which had become necessary for financial support, forced Rudhyar and Eya to give up living in New York. So after several years of apprenticeship with Dr. Moreno the financial pressure compelled Eya to accept an offer to start a department of Psychodrama at the Mental Institute in Independence, Iowa. She had shown exceptional and natural gifts as a psychodrama director and had been warmly recommended by Dr. Moreno. The Institute was reached just after Rudhyar's 57th birthday.
During his residence in Iowa Rudhyar had no outlet for his creative activity except the writing of a few astrological articles, and this was even a low time for this, as several magazines to which he had contributed bad been forced to close. He became acquainted then with the Science Fiction field, and his interest was aroused. Thus through the year 1953 he wrote a novel Return From No-Return, which was far more "occult" than typical science fiction and could find no publisher. Finally published in 1973 by Rudhyar's friends of the Palo Alto Seed Center in California it was widely acclaimed as a para-physical novel and loved for its extraordinary and otherworldly contents combining dramatic suspense and philosophical insights.
Also written were two novelets and a number of short stories. In these works Rudhyar displayed his most fertile imagination, but once again he stressed too much the occult and the poetic aspect, and not enough of the scientific gadget aspect. In spite of the enthusiasm which a well-known agent showed for these writings, they proved unacceptable to the editors of magazines. Maybe they will be published by someone sooner or later.
The stay in Iowa which lasted until December 1953 proved quite traumatic. Eya was emotionally stirred by and fell in love with her young assistant to whom she had given a most needed psychological help and whose life she had probably saved. After the sudden death of the director of the Institute in the fall of 1953 and a return trip to California, she asked for a divorce (April, 1954). Rudhyar accepted his second divorce philosophically and after strong inner experiences began to rebuild his life against many odds. He was then almost 60.
Rebuilding with More-Than-Individual Purpose
Rudhyar sojourned the 1954 winter in Cathedral City, near Palm Springs, California, where he had often gone for rest in the past. It was also during this year that his mother passed. As money was very scarce because of some personal commitments he spent the summer of 1954 and spring of 1955 as a guest at the Huntington Hartford colony in the Santa Monica hills, near Los Angeles. There he composed the score for his most extensive and mature composition Thresholds, an orchestral trilogy whose orchestration was long delayed but was completed in 1975 by George Champion, in consultation with the composer. It still remains to be performed.
During the winter of 1955 Rudhyar gave series of lectures in Santa Barbara and San Francisco. In June the publication of monthly mimeographed booklets Seed for Greater Living began, made possible by the efficient secretarial work of a devoted friend that he had just met, Virginia Seith. These publications came out regularly until 1962. Maybe one day this material will be more widely dispersed, in one form or the other. A book of poems Resurgence was written during this period. Rudhyar lived then in a small one-room apartment on Hollywood Blvd. He also wrote a regular series of articles for the magazine Horoscope and gave a few lectures in Los Angeles, during a brief New York
stay (December 1956), and in San Francisco and San Jose (1957). Rudhyar's philosophical and transpersonal approach to existence was now expressing itself in many ways. The responsive public nevertheless was still very small, and he could not find any publisher for his works - astrological, literary, or musical.In 1958, after having received the Seed for Greater Living booklets, an elderly Swiss correspondent to whom he had given astrological help, Mm. Honegger, invited Rudhyar to come see her in Switzerland, all expenses paid. Thus began the first of a series of three trips to Europe, all of which proved most significant and valuable. After stops in Boston (where Marcia Moore arranged lectures for him) and in New York where he talked under the sponsorship of the astrologer Charles Jayne, Rudhyar reached London. An official dinner in his honor was arranged by Brigadier Firebrace, at which the main English astrologers paid tribute to the influence his book The Astrology of Personality had had upon their approach to astrology. In Switzerland, Madame Honegger having become ill, he found himself alone in a renovated 16th century tower dominating the
magnificent vistas of the Rhone Valley. It was here that he completed and translated into French his book Fire Out of the Stone - a difficult task because for 40 years he had hardly ever used the French language. After many lectures in various European countries Rudhyar returned to the U.S., but after an unsatisfactory year in Redlands he returned to Europe for a longer stay.The second trip in 1961 and through 1962 brought to him many contacts and stimulating experiences. He lectured in several countries (France, Switzerland, Holland, and England) and received an exceptionally warm response. He wrote in French the book Existence, Rythme et Symbole at the suggestion of an editor; but very peculiar events made the promise of publication a myth. This book however formed the basis for the later work, The Planetarization of Consciousness.
Two New Partnerships: The Ice Jam Is Broken
At a lecture in Holland Rudhyar met the publisher Carolus Verhulst (Servire, Wassenaar, Holland) who offered to publish a small book of his, if there was one needing publication. Since McKay in Philadelphia bad given up all astrological publishing in 1951Rudhyar had tried for years, in vain, to find a publisher in New York and even in England. So he presented Mr. Verhulst with a copy of The Pulse of Life. The Dutch publisher accepted it at once and thus a most fruitful cooperation began. This at long last broke the ice jam blocking the flow of Rudhyar's career. Gradually a total of nine volumes - the last one a reprint of New Mansions For New Men (1971) - were published by the small Dutch firm Servire under the enlightened guidance of Mr. Verhulst.
A third trip to Europe took place in 1963. Rudhyar gave a seminar at the School of Philosophy in Holland and lectures in Paris and England. While staying on the Italian Riviera during August he began the writing of an early autobiography. This has now been superceded by the still-to-be-published final autobiography entitled "Rudhyar: Person and Destiny."
The publication of the books by Servire would not have been possible if Rudhyar had not heard from Gail Whittal. It was during the summer of 1963 that he received letters from this young Canadian woman. She was then living with a piano teacher, Mrs. Thelma O'Neill, who was one of Rudhyar's past correspondents, owned several of his books, and was a recipient of the Seed for Greater Living series. At this point Rudhyar was in Italy during his third journey to Europe. Returning to the United States on the day that President Kennedy was assassinated Rudhyar met his young correspondent who came to see him during her Christmas vacation while he was staying for a few days in Cathedral City, California. After her return three months later Gail Whittal became Mrs. Tana Rudhyar on March 27, 1964, the marriage taking place in Riverside, California.
After a lecture tour to St. Paul, Minnesota, Chicago and Boston the couple returned to California to take residence in San Jacinto at the foot of the high mountain by the same name.The years which followed were a period of quiet and steady work and involvement in the publishing, promotion and distribution of the books being published in Holland. Tana soon became a proficient typist and driver, and in both capacities she proved an indispensable element and sustaining factor in what soon was to become Rudhyar's spreading influence and popularity. For the younger generation was beginning to turn toward astrology, mysticism, yoga and all of the new horizons opening to the fascinating yet confusing spaces of the new "counterculture." As a result of this from 1965 onward life became very full for Rudhyar and his wife. Books succeeded books which Tana diligently
and professionally typed for offset printing in Holland. The volume of correspondence mounted, as did lectures and seminars from California to New York.A small volume, The Rhythm Of Human Fulfillment was written and published in California in 1966. In 1967 a small grant from the Ditson Fund in New York enabled a number of copies of most of Rudhyar's piano scores to be distributed to some libraries and a very few pianists. He had recopied most of them for this occasion and they are now available at the Composer's Facsimile Edition - a branch of the American Composers Alliance (170 West 74 St., New York, N.Y. 10023), to which Rudhyar belonged for many years. He not only copied old scores, but revised and completed the work now called Syntony, in four sections (Dithyramb, Eclogue, Oracle, Apotheosis). He also composed the ninth of the Tetragrams: Summer Nights.
In 1968 the book Birth Patterns for a New Humanity (later published in paperback by Harper and Row, New York with the title: Astrological Timing-. The Transition to the New Age) was written, typed by Tana, and published by Servire in Holland. Many talks were given around Los Angeles and in the San Francisco region. This marked the connection, which later became most important, of Rudhyar with the Bay region, with the Esalen Institute, and with Sam Bercholz - founder of the Shambhala bookstore and Publications in Berkeley. Shambhala eventually was to republish two of Rudhyar's best-selling older books. The Pulse of Life and The Lunation Cycle, in addition to othernewer works such as The Practice of Astrology and An Astrological Study of Psychological Complexes.
In August Rudhyar addressed the Seattle Biennial Convention of the American Federation of Astrologers where he received a standing ovation. He had also participated in the 1964 and 1966 Conventions, respectively in Boston and Washington, D.C.. In Berkeley and San Francisco Rudhyar came into close contact with the generation of young people who were eagerly reading his books, and made many new friends.
Thanks to the initiative of Sam Bercholz, Doubleday and Co., New York, agreed during 1969 to publish in a paperback edition Rudhyar's first astrological treatise The Astrology of Personality; and the demand for the book grew beyond all expectations. Doubleday later brought out a new volume, written in 1970-71: The Astrological Houses: The Spectrum of Individual Experience.
The book The Planetarization of Consciousness was written in Myllwild, a mountain resort close to San Jacinto during the summer of 1969.
The questions this book raises and attempts to answer range over several fields of enquiry, from the metaphysical and epistomological to the psychological, ethical and artistic...
...this is not to be a "scientific" book in which I show how much I have learned from colleagues and how related this or that concept of mine is to what this or that author thought and wrote. It is a book in which is expressed what I trust is a deep and vivid intuition of what existence could mean for this and coming generations of men willing to consecrate themselves to the task of building a new humanity. The holistic world-view which I present here is meant to be an incentive to think greater thoughts, to feel deeper, more inclusive feelings, and to act as "agents" for the Power that structures human evolution - however we wish to imagine this Power. It is meant to integrate some of the most basic concepts, existential attitudes and spiritual realizations of the Asiatic and Western worlds.(17)
A few copies of a deluxe edition of 100 copies were published and in January 1972 Harper and Row released a facsimile edition of it in paperback. The current publisher is Aurora Press of Santa Fe, N.M..
During 1969 Rudhyar made several trips to the San Francisco Bay Region, giving seminars in Berkeley, at Stanford University, in Big Sur (Esalen Institute), and in Northridge (near Los Angeles) for the Conference on Science and Religion, founded in 1957 by Leland Stewart, and of which Rudhyar was President for one year. He also gave a series of lectures in Tucson, Arizona for the Gayatry Center, started by his friend Paul Barkley. And a number of long articles were written for several magazines. Horoscope, Astroview, Occult and Omen.
The Humanistic, Person-Centered Approach
In 1968 Rudhyar felt it necessary to give a more public promotion to the possibility of approaching astrology and using birthcharts in a way different from both the fortune-telling variety, and the new and spreading "scientific" endeavors to make astrology respectable and teachable in universities. So
during the evening of February 26, 1969 ... I decided to start the International Committee for Humanistic Astrology. The reason I made this move was that I strongly felt the need to state as clearly and widely as possible that astrology could be given an altogether different meaning. I sensed that today many individuals, especially in younger generations, while fascinated by astrology, actually were asking for something that the "scientific", analytical approach could not give them. They were seeking a way of life in which their relationship as individuals to the universe would be given a constructive meaning. They wanted not so much to know the "how", as to realize in a new, cosmic way, the "why" of their existence. They wanted to be made whole, and to discover how best to achieve this.(18)
Rudhyar attempted to show that there were at least two basic approaches to astrology; "events-oriented" and "person-centered." He presented astrology as a kind of Western yoga or psychosynthesis, and the birthchart as a mandala, a formula of integration for the purpose of "making whole."
Every human being is a particularized aspect of the whole universe - or, religiously speaking, of God. In a more limited but more realistic sense, every human being is a particularized aspect of "man"; he is born in answer to the need of humanity at a definite time and place. Because this "need" is limited, as it refers to a temporary situation, the individual person, whose life-task it is to answer this "need"- and some would use here the word, "karma" - must have a particular temperament and character. He is what he is, because that is what is needed at this precise time. His birth-chart represents the solution of this need. It is the existential formula of his total being - his "signature" (in the occult sense of the term), his sacred name.(19)
The task of astrology is to reveal to a mind still confused and usually perverted by the pressures of his social-cultural environment, the basic structures that characterize the particular manner in which the energies of human nature are organized within him, so that he can orient, polarize and re-order his activities (at all levels of his personal life) according to [the] celestial pattern.(20)
The humanistic astrologer being concerned with the fullest possible actualization of the potentialities inherent in the birth-pattern considers that no significant step ahead can be taken except through some kind of crisis. It is not the predictable events which are important, but the attitude of the individual person towards his own growth and self-fulfillment.(21)
Humanistic astrology deals essentially with problems of consciousness. It is based on a philosophy of conscious acceptation. It asks of every individual that he accepts what he potentially is - the whole of it, without any ethical tag of good or bad, fortunate or unfortunate, being attached to it. This means that one should accept one's birth-chart as it is and be intent upon fulfilling its implications. But these implications must be seen in a totally new and untraditional light, in the realization that every birth-chart fills a significant purpose, all valuable, and that as an embodied individual, one is that purpose, whatever it is and however society or parents may regard its value.(22)
All of these ideas were developed in six booklets (C.S.A. Press, Lakemont, Georgia) which were combined into a book entitled Person-Centered Astrology. The latter is now published by Aurora Press of Santa Fe, N.M..
Unable to keep up with the correspondence and work involved in a fast-growing membership, Rudhyar transferred the direction of I. C. H. A. to James and Barbara Shere of Berkeley, California whose group of keenly interested students and friends gathered regularly to discuss Rudhyar's works. Quarterly "Letters" were sent to the associates and a new set of booklets written by the younger generation were planned. The I. C. H. A. was later discontinued in 1975.
In 1970 Rudhyar lectured in Tucson, San Francisco, Woodland, Carmel, Dallas and addressed The American Federation of Astrologers in Miami where he again received a standing ovation. In October he flew to New York for lectures and musical contacts; and he talked to a group in Pennsylvania and in Baltimore before returning home. During the summer in Idyllwild he wrote a new work We Can Begin Again - Together, which was later published by Omen Communications in 1974. Early on when this work could find no publisher Rudhyar produced a shorter volume Directives for New Life which serves as an introduction to some of the ideas developed in the longer work (Seed Publications, 1971).
A small booklet, A Seed, was published in San Francisco (Christmas 1971) and set beautifully in poetic form by Al Rinker, using the closing words of a talk given by Rudhyar for Esalen in San Francisco. This booklet was warmly welcomed by many people, young and middle-aged, and was widely distributed. It stated in very simple terms the ideal of the "Seed Man" and the deep spiritual choice which today confronts every man and woman.
In 1971 Rudhyar completed the book on The Astrological Houses (Doubleday, 1971), a smaller volume Astrological Themes for Meditation (CSA Press, 1972), and began an extensive work An Astrological Mandala: The Cycle of Transformation and its 360 Symbols. In the latter work he reformulates and discusses the Sabian symbols, which Marc Jones and Elsie Wheeler had produced psychically in 1921. Rudhyar passed the summer in Palo Alto, talking to students of the Esalen summer school as well as giving two seminars for the Esalen Institute: in May at Mill Valley with Jose and Miriam Arguelles, on "Education for Rebirth"; and in September in Berkeley on "A New Look at H. P. Blavatsky's The Secret Doctrine." He also lectured to students at the University of California in Davis.
On May 5, 1971, The Surge of Fire was performed for the third time at the California Institute of the Arts, under the direction of James Tenney. A meeting with the young pianist Michael Sellers led to the latter's decision to perform many of the Rudhyar works for the piano. During the 1971-72 season he gave a number of first performances of Rudhyar's music, including the world premieres of the completed and revised (1968) Syntony and Tetragram #9: Summer Nights. In 1972 he recorded an album containing Syntony and Pentagrams III. Subsequent to these activities another young pianist, Dwight Peltzer, recorded Tetragrams #l, #2, and #3.
Thus began a surge of interest in Rudhyar's music, which had remained so long unperformed. William Masselos and the two recordings he did of Granites (the last one a CRI record, 1970, which also includes Three Paeans and Stars - the latter excerpted from Pentagram III) were largely instrumental in bringing this about. But the new interest might have been related to the revival of the music of the composers who were active in the early days of the International Composers Guild - from Varese, lves and Ruggles to Henry Cowell. The many young people who had been eagerly listening to the long forgotten music of Scriabin were quite naturally responding to Rudhyar's music, which, unlike as it is in many ways to that of the Russian mystic, is essentially an inner-directed and profoundly psycho-spiritual type of musical expression.
Rudhyar's music is a music of speech, in contrast to the typical classical music of Europe which was born of dance rhythm and popular songs, or else developed along formalistic lines stressing "patterns" rather than "tones." Rudhyar often stressed the basic difference between notes and tones, between music to be looked at (the score) and a music composed of tones charged with an intensity of personal experiences. His music is a music of "speech" - speech beyond the rationalism of modern language - because in it a living person speaks out directly and spontaneously in resonant tones. Thus the freedom of its tone-flow and the impossibility of straight-jacketing this durational flow into
the rigidity of regular bars and standardized formal developments.My works are not formalistic; they do not include the technical development, distortion, and inversion of themes or like procedures. They are essentially spontaneous exteriorizations of peak experiences; They are as condensed as seeds are. Melody and harmony are inseparably united in my most characteristic works, for the melody is an emergence from the resonant substance of the tones, or else a pure song evoking subtle harmonic resonances. It is not descriptive music in any sense, but it is evocative - as, in my opinion, any great art should be.... Western music is, alas, but too often "score music," to be seen rather than to be heard. A technical musician can hear with his eyes following an invisible score; he recognizes intellectually the themes of the "rows," admiring the skill with which they are developed. To me this has nothing to do with real tone-experience which should be the foundation and aim of music, no more than a discussion between intellectuals or a typical college course has anything to do with the existential realities of the process of living, growing, and dying-with the immediate experience of reality.(23)
In March of 1972 a Rudhyar "retrospective" was held by the KPFA Pacifica radio station of Berkeley, Ca. featuring 25 hours of broadcasting on the various aspects of his creativity. This included an exhibition of his paintings, the reading of his complete novel Rania over the radio in 16 installments, a concert of his piano music and lectures by Rudhyar himself. The Rania reading eventually lead to the novel's publication, after over 40 years of waiting.
Rudhyar continued to lecture and to write. A steady stream of books came from his pen with Tana's assistance. In 1973 three books: Rania (Unity Press), An Astrological Mandala (Random House), and Return From No-Return (The Seed Center) were published. In 1974 came We Can Begin Again-Together (Omen Communications) and The Astrology of America's Destiny (Random House). The next year brought the beginning of a fruitful association with a new publisher, The Theosophical Publishing House (Quest). The first of a series of books published by this firm was Occult Preparations for a New Age. That same year Human Dimensions magazine devoted a special issue to "Seed Man: Dane Rudhyar." This issue contained a short biographical sketch, excerpts from writings, some of his paintings, an excerpt from a musical score, a poem, and photographs.
During this period Rudhyar was based in southern California but he continued to travel for speaking engagements. His eighth decade had been a time of creative outpouring as his works had begun to finally become acceptable to publishers and a younger generation that was on the "search."
The Transpersonal Vision
Also 1975 marked the appearance of From Humanistic to Transpersonal Astrology (The Seed Center) and The Sun Is Also A Star (Dutton). This latter work has been re-titled The Galactic Dimension of Astrology and is now published by Aurora Press, Santa Fe. N.M. - In these two books Rudhyar brought more clearly into focus the transpersonal approach to astrology.
I began to use the term transpersonal in 1930, long before the movement of transpersonal psychology was started, and with a meaning quite different from the one the word has recently taken on in the field of psychology. I defined as transpersonal a process of 'descent' of transcendent spiritual power and illumination through the normal consciousness, and eventually through the whole personality of a human being. The source of that power and light exists in a realm 'beyond' the personal consciousness and the ego, but I saw in the transpersonal action a descent of power rather than an ascent of a person's consciousness and emotions. In traditional religious terms, as a man prays to God his soul reaches up to the Divine; and God answers by an outpouring of 'grace' - a descent of the Holy Spirit. The transpersonal approach I have been presenting does not follow any strictly religious system of thought; neither is it 'mystical' in the usual sense of the term. It is essentially metaphysical and cosmological - or one may say cosmontological, as it refers to cosmic 'being' (ontos)."(24)
People everywhere need understanding as well as guidance. They are confused by a multitude of options which they are unable to evaluate because they lack the required perspective and clarity of mind. The problem is how this needed help and guidance is to be given and, first of all, on what basis?
The only basis I can find practical and effective as well as philosophically and even aesthetically -significant is a multilevel approach to the human being. In terms of cosmology, or 'cosmontology', this approach leads one to consider the universe as a hierarchy of fields of existence of systems of organization. It leads to the concept, not merely of 'holism' in the sense Jan Smuts used it in his seminal book, Holism and Evolution (London & N.Y.: MacMillan Co., 1926), but of what I have called holarchy. In its application to human psychology and the future possibility of humanity's development, the concept of holarchy inevitably leads to the realization that a state of more-than -indiyidual (or 'transindividual') existence is not only a possibility, but the only unglamorous, realistic and practical way to give meaning and direction to the present day struggle of individuals and nations toward what many people, often naively, call the New Age.
The possibility of a really 'new' Age can be seen in the interrelated cycles of planetary and cosmic motions, if properly interpreted, but cycles do not determine what will happen. They only evoke the possibility of the happening and IF it happens, something of its basic character. Man alone can decide what actually and concretely will happen at least at Man's own level of existence.
Humanity is only a part of vaster wholes the planet, the solar system, our galaxy and these wholes hierarchically set the cosmic and planetary stages; yet, on the stage of the Earth's biosphere Man is a crucially important performer, humanity no doubt has a role to perform, at least broadly defined by its place within these vaster wholes. The 'score' is not of Man's own making, but the performance is nevertheless his, for better or for worse; and every truly individualized human being is a responsible aspect of Humanity-as-a-whole. The whole acts not only in the individual, but through the individual. The whole realizes itself in and through the acts, feelings, and thoughts of its individualized participants who have become open to its descents of power. As this occurs, the transindividual state of existence is reached.
The way to such a state is what I call the transpersonal path. In no basic sense is it different from what esoteric traditions have spoken of as the Path of Initiation; yet this hoary and haloed word, Initiation, can be seen in a new light once the human being who is to tread the path leading to it has actually emerged from the chrysalis-state of bondage to the particular culture that had formed his or her mind and conditioned his or her feeling-responses and behavioral habits.(25)
If they are successful in such a difficult and slow process [of transcending the collective way of life of their particular culture], they find themselves, as it were, face to face with the universe, without cultural institutions and socio-religious prejudices or paradigms to determine for them what and how they should see this universe and act in it. They become open to forces and influences that may work toward the transformation of our culture, and of humanity as a whole - creative forces, high Intelligences, perhaps divine beings, through which the vast process of human evolution and of planetary development operate. Such a transformation is not only possible, but necessary when a culture is gradually breaking down and its values have become perverted, or empty of meaning, and there is no longer real, vitalizing faith in institutions and their once great and inspiring symbols.
We live now, all over the globe, in such a period. The challenge of total transformation- individual-personal and collective-social - is confronting us, if our eyes are open, our minds clear, and if our ego allows us to reach beyond its fears and its insecure boundaries. When we are able to accept such a challenge, everything changes - including our approach to astrology. Our approach to ourselves, and therefore to our birth-chart - symbol of what we are as a person born at a particular time and place on the earth's surface - must be repolarized. A few centuries ago Humanism outlined the spiritual goal for human beings: how to be a fully human person within a then flowering culture. But now another possibility has opened up. The spearhead of humanity has taken upon itself the crucial burden of self-transformation and world-transformation.
For those who are able, willing and ready to meet the challenge, astrology should speak in another language.... The integration of personality, of which Carl Jung eloquently spoke, is not a sufficiently dynamic and arousing ideal or goal. What drives the few individuals who are ready -or think they are ready - is the vision of a total transformation of the whole person. A transpersonal vision, demanding a transpersonal astrology.(26)
Transpersonal astrology is astrology reoriented and repolarized to meet the needs of such individualized, or individualizing, human beings. It is not intended to meet the needs of every human being. It cannot be significantly and validly used by every astrologer; but neither should the controls of an atomic reactor be given to any college graduate having majored in ordinary physics. [For there is a] serious responsibility incurred by anyone using a truly transpersonal approach.(27)
Another Rebeginning
The commencement of his ninth decade marked the end of Rudhyar's third marriage. He and Tana were divorced in 1976. This turn of events did not dampen his output, though. Indeed
only after moving to Palo Alto, California in January, 1976 and marrying Leyla Rael did a new, sustained period of composition begin. Composed in rapid succession were several fairly long piano works - Transmutation, Theurgy, Autumn, Three Cantos, Epic Poem and Rite of Transcendence - orchestral works transforming and integrating older materials, two string quartets, and a quintet, Nostalgia. I was then past eighty and busily engaged in lecture trips and writing new books. The books presented my mature approaches to philosophy (The Rhythm of Wholeness, 1979-80) [published by Quest, 1983], socio-psychological issues (Beyond Individualism: The Psychology of Transformation, 1976-77) [Quest, 1978], and concluded my development of the humanistic and transpersonal approaches to astrology I had pioneered since 1932 (The Astrology of Transformation, 1978) [Quest, 1980](28)
Rudhyar had met Ellen Schachter, who was to become Leyla Rael and Mrs. Dane Rudhyar, in 1974. They began to live and work together in 1975, and were married on 3-31-77.
A symposium in his honor was held at California State University, Long Beach from March 24-26, 1976. On this occasion some of his compositions were performed and several of his paintings exhibited. A program booklet for the symposium was printed with the title Rudhyar. a Renaissance Man: Literature, Music, Painting, Philosophy, to which Rudhyar contributed a section, "Concerning my Music."
In 1976 and 1977 he received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and in 1978 he was the recipient of the Marjorie Peabody Waite Award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. His eighty-fifth birthday was remembered on March 20, 1980, in New York at a concert of the League of Composers - International Society for Contemporary Music. For this occasion three of his piano compositions were performed: First pentagram, Second pentagram, and Granites.
In June of 1980 Rudhyar was awarded two honorary doctorates for his writings in psychology and transpersonal philosophy. One bestowing institution was the John F. Kennedy University of Orinda, Ca.; the other was the California Institute of Transpersonal Psychology.
Other works were completed and/or republished during this period. Culture, Crisis, and Creativity was published by Quest in 1977. Three compilations of older material were republished. One entitled Astrology and the Modern Psyche was published by CRCS in 1976. Another, Paths to the Fire was issued by Hermes in 1978. The third, Astrological Insights into the Spiritual Life was published by ASI (now Aurora Press) in 1979. The Rebirth of Hindu Music was republished by Samuel Weiser also in that year. With his wife Leyla, Rudhyar co-authored Astrological Aspects (ASI[Aurora Press], 1979). He finished his autobiography "Rudhyar: Person and Destiny" in 1981, but it remains unpublished. His last and final effort at a large scale book on music The Magic of Tone and the Art of Music was completed in 1981-82 and was published by Shambhala in 1982.
As a part of the American Composers Series in Washington, D.C. selections of Rudhyar's music were performed with the composer in the audience.
Paul Zukofsky's performance [of Five Stanzas] at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on March 10, 1982 was for me a most memorable event, because of the excellence and intensity of the interpretation and the extraordinary warmth of the audience's reception.(29)
Zukofsky also recorded the work five days later.
During this period there were several other performances and recordings of Rudhyar's music. Five Stanzas was first performed in March of 1975 by Friedrich Cerha directing the Austrian Radio Orchestra. Transmutation which was written for, premiered (1976) and recorded (1977) by Marcia Mikulak. Her album also included Tetragrams #4 and #5. Marcia also gave the premiere performance of The Warrior, for piano and orchestra. Two string quartets, Advent and Crisis and Overcoming, were recorded by the Kronos Quartet in 1979. The quintet Nostalgia was premiered in New York in 1979 by the new music group Relache. Epic Poem was dedicated to, premiered and recorded (1982) by Robert Black. From the two RITA conferences (see below) there are cassettes of Stephen Kelly performing Pentagram III and Three Paeans; and Edmund Correia doing Pentagram III, Autumn, Theurgy, and Three Cantos (for the latter this was the premiere performance). Concerning Edmund Correia, Rudhyar said, "Of all the performances of my works, Ed's best reveal and convey the emotional intensity and spiritual message the music is meant to evoke."
The Rhythm of Wholeness
Although he wrote one astrology book and co-authored another during his final decade Rudhyar primarily devoted his last 10 years to music and to the writing of his non-astrological works. His fourth marriage, to Leyla Rael, was tonic and served to engender a kind of renewal. Perhaps the best example of this was his renascent and prolific musical output, as indicated above. In the field of the written word this renewal is exemplified by the book many consider to be his magnum opus, Rhythm of Wholeness.
My purpose in writing this book was to evoke the possibility of organizing knowledge, intuitive realizations, and collective and individual experiences within a new frame of reference that would reveal a new meaning of "being" as experienced by a human consciousness. It was not to convey new information concerning the universe or to impart a mass of data about the place human beings occupy in it.
Of themselves data have no meaning until they are organized in relation to one another and interpreted by a human mind. To do so, the mind must refer the data to a frame of reference. The character of all such frames of reference inevitably is metaphysical and/or the product of a religious revelation. It is also a product of the historical development of a particular society and culture. In addition to producing such frames of reference-which fundamentally orient and even control the collective assumptions and reactions of a people-a society's historical development also introduces to the people's consciousness ever changing and more or less new experiences and concepts. In our society, this process of change has accelerated enormously since the Industrial revolution began radically to transform human existence and the patterns of interpersonal and so do cultural relationships. Hence the need for a new frame of reference within which to interpret new experience and conceptual breakthroughs.
In 1930 when I wrote a series of articles entitled "The Philosophy of Operative Wholeness" for the small magazine, The Glass Hive (which was edited by Will Levington Comfort, a writer and long forgotten pioneer of "new Age" ideals), the concepts of wholeness and holistic (versus atomistic) organization were not in general use. Neither was the term transpersonal which, I believe, I was the first to use in English in that series of articles. Today these terms are in common usage, but, alas, often with vulgarized meanings. In this book they are given what I consider to be their most significant philosophical meaning.
In order to be understood fully, such meanings require a "new mind" the "mind of wholeness." Also required is a still generally unfamiliar feeling-response toward interpersonal relationships and socio-cultural issues - thus a new quality of being as one discovers oneself to operate both as a person living in society and a generically human organism affected by and affecting the biosphere of the planet Earth. My hope is that a careful, consistent, and sequential reading of the pages of this book will generate at least the desire - and perhaps the sustained determination - to develop such a mind of wholeness.
This book introduces a relatively new type of relationship to other men and women, to nature, to our planet as a whole, and to what usually is pictured as God, a divine state of being, or a supreme Reality. Although basic ideas are rarely absolutely new, they must be reformulated and their implications for concrete existential transformation revealed anew culture after culture, century after century, and even generation after generation.
To do so one must use words which have acquired definite, customary, and perhaps tradition - hallowed meanings. Unfortunately, this poses serious problems to a radical attempt to develop a new mind. Many readers assume that philosophical terms always carry the meaning with which they are familiar; they respond to new ideas by taking them out of context and using them to confirm ideas previously encountered. Therefore, it has been necessary for me to define as precisely as possible the different meanings I give to familiar terms for which no adequate and convincing alternatives can be found in our language.
While reading this book, intellectual criticism of detail of formulation tends to be nonproductive, because the purpose of the presentation is not, I repeat, to convey a mass of data claimed to be objectively true. It is rather to introduce a kind of philosophical perspective which, consistently applied, allows the inclusion and under-standing of all human experiences, both objective and subjective. In this connection, the book's subtitle - A Total Affirmation of Being - is most important. The rhythm of dynamic Wholeness always deals with "being"; it dismisses as irrelevant the concept of "non-being." Such a concept has meaning only if the term being is thought to apply solely to the objective universe. What follows the dissolution of this predominantly objective state of being is a predominantly subjective type of consciousness and activity. However, our existence in the universe is not exclusively objective, nor is what follows our death or that of the cosmos exclusively subjective. Reality, as presented in this book, is the unceasing, dynamic interplay of subjectivity and objectivity, of a principle of Unity and a principle of Multiplicity. It is neither Unity nor Multiplicity, neither spirit nor matter - separately.
... In a very real sense, every possible relationship between Unity and Multiplicity operates at some level. Every phase is defined by every other phase of the cyclic process of being. Wholeness is not any of these phases. It is "be-ness," not "being." Any whole (or system of organization of a multiplicity of elements) is Wholeness in a dynamically and cyclically evolving form in which all other forms are also implied.
Such a statement ... although it may sound extremely abstract if not incomprehensible,
does not purport to describe precisely what reality (with or without a capital R) is. It is meant only to evoke the birthing of a new mind - the mind of wholeness.Because of this essential purpose, this book might be considered an epic poem conveying the reader the sense of a complete experience. The poem makes a sequence of events - but not each separate event considered unconnected - translucent to meaning. It is a revelation of meaning through a sequence of events.
To make the process of being translucent to meaning - this is Man's supreme archetypal function within the planetary whole in which mankind is evolving toward the state of what I call Illumined Man. In that state, the Light of the Logos - the creative Word that "was in the beginning" is reflected by the transfigured individual and transmuted into Meaning.(30)
RITA and The Final Move
In 1981 the Rudhyar Institute for Transpersonal Activity (RITA) was incorporated by Leyla Rael. Its purpose was outlined in an Autumn, 1981 notification letter by Rudhyar.
Its eventual aim is to establish a permanent center, where files of over 1,500 articles, manuscripts of unpublished volumes, paintings, and musical scores will be made available to students, and where courses and seminars will be organized. A complete edition of my writings may follow in order to keep them in circulation, as commercial publishers will not keep books in print unless they sell almost as many copies as new releases each year. In the meantime, the Institute plans to publish a series of booklets which I am now writing, which deal with the more practical aspects of transpersonal living. Later on, earlier articles, published and unpublished, may be revised and given new life. Phonograph records of my musical works are also planned. Other activities will develop as the need and possibility for them arises.
Of the series of (three) booklets referred to above two were written and published. These were Beyond Personhood (RITA, 1983) and Individual Selfhood and the Threefold Nature of Human Experience (RITA, 1983). The latter booklet and the unpublished third one were rewritten, more material was added and the new whole was released as a much larger book, Rudhyar's last and posthumous work. This book The Fullness of Human Experience was published by Quest in 1986.
The first of two RITA conferences was held in Menio Park, Ca. in September of 1983, and was attended by approximately 100 people. Rudhyar's 90th birthday was celebrated at the second conference given in March of 1985, with an attendance of nearly 50 persons, at the same location. Both conferences included presentations of Rudhyar's music.
Around August of 1985 Rudhyar made his final change of residence. And close to one month later "(31) At his new home in San Francisco on Friday, September 13, 1985, shortly after 11:00 am. he made the greatest move of his long and nomadic, but immensely creative, fruitful, and productive life: he passed beyond the domain of the living.
In accordance with Rudhyar's wishes, his body remained undisturbed at home for three days. The traditional Tibetan Buddhist chants and invocations were performed at his bedside by lamas under the supervision of His Eminence Tai Situ, Rinpoche, with whom Rudhyar felt a special connection. On Saturday, September 14, at 2:00 pm those who had been close to Rudhyar in the last years, months, and days gathered in silence in his rooms and sat in meditation for about an hour. At noon on Monday, also in accordance with his wishes, his body was entrusted to the Neptune Society for cremation, which took place during the night on Tuesday."(32)
The Message, the Performer, and the Freed Seed
Life's circumstances made it nearly impossible for Rudhyar to concentrate upon his musical production as he wanted to do. Yet this fact is actually an essential part of the meaning of his whole life, which should be clear to anyone sympathetic to its message. Rudhyar was the very antithesis of the "specialist" ideal so worshipped in our disintegrating society. He was the typical "generalist", as can well be seen from the breadth of interests and understanding displayed in his major books. He had to be a generalist, because of his inclusive grasp of historical as well as cosmic processes and his sense of personal responsibility to a global future for mankind. Such a global future, he felt, cannot be
reached in a manner consonant with man's total possibilities of individual and collective development unless a fundamental change in consciousness and in the quality of social and interpersonal relationship takes place; and this very soon. Thus an essential and nearly total transformation of our civilization, a "revaluation of all values" is urgently needed. It is not a matter of technical inventions or changes in social or artistic fashions, especially not in music as such, or any profession as such; everything is involved. What is most
important therefore is to formulate in broad all-inclusive terms what the basic principles at the root of this total transformation are. To fulfill this task was the destiny that Rudhyar became and lived.Because of his enormous production of articles and books concerning astrology, he naturally came to be known by many people as an "astrologer." But he always saw in astrology mostly a tool, a technique for the development of a "generalistic" and humanistic type of understanding and wisdom, and the practical everyday application of a holistic and objective grasp of the very foundations of all existence. One of his early and unrealized projects had for a motto the words: Solidarity, Service, Synthesis. It expresses well the essential character of Rudhyar's life and work.
He had to wait until his seventies to see at least some of the ideas and ideals for which he had stood for fifty years taking roots in the minds and hearts of those who could be his grandchildren. He had the patience of men who know that their work is attuned to the rhythm of evolutionary forces that must eventually succeed, however long success is delayed. His also was the impatience of those who realize only too well the urgency and critical character of every moment of life at the threshold of what could be a deep and widespread upheaval of the most basic values which have pervaded our Western civilization - and indeed other cultures, whose flowering has long been past, and of which only spiritual seeds and memories remain.
So many seed ideas have been sown during the past hundred years! I can only hope that those which should be scattered by [my works] will have in them the power to feed the growth of men and women of the impending New Age in a harmonious, beautiful and serene manner and that they will fall upon a soil rich with the manure of tragedies overcome and blessed. I hope and trust that they will belong to the constructive side of the great mutation which is taking place, perhaps not only in mankind but even throughout the entire biosphere, and that they will play a significant, even if small part in the process of unfoldment of a planetary consciousness in the fruitful minds of self-consecrated and radiant human beings.(33)
In this century of often confused thinking and aimless living, Rudhyar exemplified that rather rare characteristic of one who knew where he stood and who had few illusions concerning the road ahead. He had an inner knowledge that could only be suggested and evoked, and all that related to his outer life was, after all, only an externalization of the power behind the personality. In the end, only this power remains. The performer of the ritual of a creative and pioneering life has given up his "mask" for others to use when the need requires - and retired in the silence.
The power that held my whole being as a lens to bring ideas to a focus, will be released when I go. Perhaps when the person I appear to be is gone, it may be easier to tune up to that mind-power and what is beyond it the wholeness of spirit, the freed seed.(34)
References
As indicated in the Editor's note at the beginning of this article the following lettered items were used as major and minor sources for the narrative. The succeeding numbered items refer to the quotations end-noted in the text.
A. Anonymous. Dane Rudhyar 1895-. Copyright 1972 by James Shere.
B. Anonymous. Dane Rudhyar: A Portrait. Included in the special issue of the Human Dimensions magazine, entitled "Seed Man: Dane Rudhyar. Vol. 4, #3, p.3-7. Human Dimensions. Waynesville, NC.
C. "Dane Rudhyar", in American Composers by David Ewen. New York. G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1982. p. 546-549.
D. RaeI, Leyla. The Essential Rudhyar. Palo Alto, Ca. RITA, 1983.
E. Rael, Leyla. The Lunation Process in Astrological Guidance. New York. ASI, nd. p. 39-52. [This entire booklet in now included in the latest reprinting of Rudhyar, Dane. The Lunation Cycle. Santa Fe, NM. Aurora Press, 1986. - Editor]
1. Rudhyar, Dane. Paths to the Fire. Ferndale, Mi. Hermes Press, Inc., 1978. p. 2-3.
2. Rudhyar, Dane. From Humanistic to Transpersonal Astrology. Palo Alto, Ca. The Seed Center, 1975. p. 9.
3. Paths to the Fire, p. 3-6.
4. Rudhyar, Dane. The Magic of Tone and the Art of Music. Boulder, Co. Shambhala, 1982. p. 193.
5. ibid., p. viii.
6. Rudhyar, Dane. The Rebirth of Hindu Music. New York. Samuel Weiser, 1979. pp. vii-viii.
7. Rudhyar, Dane. Of Vibrancy and Peace. Wassenaar, The Netherlands. Servire, 1967. p. 6.
8. Passages taken from the still-unpublished autobiography of Dane Rudhyar, "Rudhyar: Person and Destiny", quoted in: Rael, Leyla. The Essential Rudhyar. Palo Alto, Ca. RITA, 1983. p. 31.
9. Rudhyar, Dane. Rania. New York. Avon Books, 1975. pp. vi-vii. First published in a limited edition by Unity Press, 1973. San Francisco.
10. Rudhyar, Dane. The Astrology of the Modern Psyche. Dam, Ca. CRCS Publications, 1976. p. vii.
11. From Humanistic to Transpersonal Astrology, p. 10.
12. Rudhyar, Dane. Astrological Insights into the Spiritual Life. N.Y. ASI, 1979. pp. 3-4. [The publisher is now known as Aurora Press and has moved to Santa Fe, N.M. - Editor]
13. "Rudhyar: Person and Destiny", quoted in: The Essential Rudhyar. p. 38-39.
14. Astrological Insights into the Spiritual Life. pp. 4-5.
15. "Rudhyar: Person and Destiny", quoted in: The Essential Rudhyar. p. 39-41.
16. Rudhyar, Dane. The Planetarization of Consciousness. New York. ASI, 1977.
pp. iv-v. [See the publisher note at #ll.]17. ibid., p. vi.
18. Rudhyar, Dane. Person-Centered Astrology. Lakemont, Ga. CSA Press, 1976. p. 8. [This book is now published by Aurora Press of Santa Fe, N.M. - Editor]
19. ibid., p. 43.
20. ibid., p. 45.
21. ibid., p. 54.
22. ibid., p. 102.
23. A passage written by Dane Rudhyar, quoted in: Ewen, David. American Composers. New York. G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1982. p. 549.
24. Rudhyar, Dane. The Astrology of Transformation. Wheaton, II. The Theosophical Publishing House, 1980. p. x.
25. ibid., p. xiv-xvi.
26. From Humanistic to Transpersonal Astrology. p. 37.
27. The Astrology of Transformation, p. xvi.
28. The Magic of Tone and the Art of Music. p. 194.
29. Notes from the record jacket of - Dane Rudhyar: 5 Stanzas and Epic Poem, CP2 Recordings, CP2/13.
30. Rudhyar, Dane. Rhythm of Wholeness. Wheaton, II. The Theosophical Publishing House, 1983. p. x-xiii.
31. From a 9-21-85 notification letter sent out by Leyla RaeI.
32. ibid.
33. The Planetarization of Consciousness., p.24.
34. From the closing talk given by Rudhyar at the second RITA conference in
March of 1985.