WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY School of Music MUS 702 Masters Special Problems, Directed Study and Examination

The Mysterium of Alexander Scriabin

Submitted by Tyler Robin Evans April 16, 2009

In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts in Music

I do not know yet what I ought to create or how to create it, but my desire to create is in itself an act of creation. Alexander Scriabin (1872 1915)

CONTENTS
Preamble.. 4 Philosophy & Poetry.. 6 Prometheus 17 Synaesthesia & The Mystic Chord IV. Theosophy...28 V. Ancient Mystery Religions & Mythology 34 VI. The Sorcerer.. 41 VII. Mysterium 43 VIII. Synthesis. 54 Bibliography. 58 I. II. III.

ILLUSTRATIONS
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. Alexander Scriabin (Freidin, 2008)..2 Scriabins Key-Color Wheel..18 Key-Color Wheel with Attributes. 19 Prometheus fragment of score...20 Sir Isaac Newtons color-tone illustration...20 Krgers ocular harpsichord design................. 21 Alexander Rimington and his color organ...22 Scriabins Clavier Lumieres ..........23 The Mystic chord 23/24 The Petrushka chord. 25 Prometheus cover art from score...27 Alexander Scriabin, Paris, 1905 (Bowers 1969, frontispiece)57

I. Preamble
The topic of this discourse does not exist. The Mysterium of the Russian composer Alexander Scriabin apart from a few vague musical sketches, short works for solo piano, and fragments of written text never made it beyond the stage of mere idea. Many of these surviving parts were instead incorporated into a work known as the Acte pralable, or, Prefatory Act a work intended to prepare humankind for the Mysterium. Though it may seem fruitless to study an unfinished composition, upon close examination of Scriabin it becomes clear that the Mysterium concept was the driving force behind the entirety of his work. Boris de Schloezer, Scriabins brother-in-law, declares in Scriabin Artist and Mystic that All of Scriabins creations are but approximations gradually leading to the Mysterium (1987, 10). Even in Scriabins early works, evidence can be found of mild harmonic daring and unique invention, only to become progressively more daring. A mystic eroticism suffuses his personal writings, late orchestral works and the projected fabric of the Mysterium. It is also in evidence throughout his compositions for solo piano increasingly so throughout his career which comprise the bulk of his output. The Mysterium, a vision that pervaded Scriabins whole creative life, can thus be examined through his extant works, his personality and his words, and the spiritual joy that enveloped him and which he desperately wished to share with the world. Hence when examining any aspect of Scriabin in his personal life or his career one finds the Mysterium. The strongest available impressions of the Mysterium itself come from records of private conversations with his intimates as well as Scriabins own writings on his beliefs and goals. The initial inspiration for this project was a brief phrase encountered in most reference articles on Scriabin a casual mention of some uncompleted work called the Mysterium that was intended to bring about the Apocalypse. In such resources, it was common that no further information was supplied to the present writer an unthinkable phenomenon. As was soon discovered, this description is also oversimplified and incomplete, approaching inaccurate. Apocalypse implies, if nothing else, destruction. It also implies contempt toward the human race the opposite of Scriabins heart and intent. His goal was not to destroy the world and the human race. The love he felt for humanity could easily be overlooked, as he became so obsessed with how to save it that he outwardly appeared arrogant and self-consumed. It was not a purely egocentric display of power, but Oneness that was Scriabins true goal. The idea of Oneness is common to many of the worlds major religions and philosophies. It is

expressed in countless works of art, music, literature and drama Scriabin subscribed to this belief through all of these avenues. His desire to bring about a great union of humankind, to fully achieve Oneness, was his central motivation in conceiving the Mysterium; he felt this was his personal calling. He believed that in truth we are all purely spiritual beings and it is our destiny to return to that state. In another sense (of many) he sought to bring an end to our separation from God. As Schloezer points out, it is key to an understanding of this enigmatic figure not to attempt to separate Scriabin the man from Scriabin the musician or Scriabin the philosopher. All facets are equally important and complementary it is as necessary to examine his personality and belief system as to glean a picture of the totality and evolution of his musical works. Several key factors, ancient and contemporary, shaped and confirmed his creative path. The written word informed much of Scriabins creative activity, be it his improvisatory philosophies, his cosmic, ecstatic poetry, or the philosophies and poetry of his contemporaries. His masterpiece Prometheus, foreshadowing the future, displayed Scriabins famous sound-color synaesthesia, and made pervasive use of a completely original harmonic language built on the mystic chord; both are important guides to his compositional evolution. Further, there is a strong debt owed to esoteric or occult knowledge, particularly Theosophy which draws on ancient texts of predominantly Indian cosmogony (the theory of the origin of the cosmos) and ancient mystery religions and mythology. The discovery of ancient similarities to Scriabins own plans gave him confirmation and hope and galvanized his belief in the power of art. As Theosophy attempted to synthesize philosophy, science and religion, so Scriabin sought to synthesize all arts, philosophical ideas, the human senses with each other, and humankind with the entire universe. The two central themes synthesis and Scriabins belief in the power of art tie directly into the final discussion, that of the Mysterium itself, its scope and content, and its fate.

II. Philosophy and Poetry

Man can explain the universe by studying himself alone. A. Scriabin

As will presumably be shown, it can be difficult to distinguish Scriabins poetry from his philosophy. In fact, his philosophical ideas tend to be quite poetic, and his poetry quite philosophical. As biographers agree, both were connected with his music. Scriabins philosophical views were generally crystallized following a musical composition, by way of explanation and validation of his work. According to Schloezer, Theories he constructed had no other aim but to coordinate and forumulate in rational terms his own musical experience (1987, 316). From Scriabins constantly evolving philosophies and his ecstatic poetry, we get a glimpse of his reverence for creativity and his erotic mysticism. As he was not a true philosopher and was well aware of his own lack of general knowledge (Schloezer 1987, 70), he was passionate but often found it difficult to communicate his complex ideas, even to those closest to him. Thus his writings, often filled with Eastern-style paradoxes, can be difficult to understand. In kindly language, Schloezer describes artists as messengers from another world, and while not specifically naming Scriabin, suggests that much that seems either nave or paradoxical appears so on account of the artists insufficient mastery of discursive reasoning, which results from inadequate philosophical training (1987, 79). While he was a musician, poet and philosopher, perhaps even a prophet, there is no doubt Scriabins mastery over musical sounds was greater than his mastery over words. Interpretations of his philosophies by his friends and contemporaries are thus helpful, while echoes of his inspiration and the zeitgeist of his day can be found in his poetry and that of his literary friends, among them Alexander Blok and Viacheslav Ivanov. Alfred Swan names Schloezer as Scriabins chief advisor in matters philosophical, and thus most of Scriabins philosophies are here relayed through Schloezer. However, Swan and Faubion Bowers, another Scriabin biographer, also provide illuminating commentary. While Scriabins philosophy is definitely multi-faceted, its basis can be described as the belief in creativity, and thus art, as a religion. His personal experiences of ecstasy the fountainhead of his inspiration (Schloezer 1987, 149) are another key element, as pervasive in his music as in his philosophy. Also
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prominent are the importance he ascribed to the role of mankind in the universe a view implicit in the epigraph to this section and the notion that mankinds true nature is spiritual as opposed to physical. According to Schloezer, Scriabin saw the entire history of the cosmos from the human perspective. Schloezer also comments on the energy and passion with which [Scriabin] spoke of the ultimate divestment of fleshly garments, of dematerialization, of a return to a state of pure spirituality (1987, 132). He believed firmly in the oneness of all things, and through his other beliefs the attainment of oneness came to occupy his mind as his lifes central focus. He was influenced by Theosophy, with its connections to Indian religion and philosophy, by private conversations with his peers among whom were philosophers and poets and his own notions of mystical ecstasy which pervade his entire body of work. According to Bowers, Scriabin believed that creativity is the source of all human power; he quotes from Scriabins private notebooks that people can expect nothing from life except that which they create by themselves alone (1973, 34). He also quotes Scriabin via Tatyana Shaborkina: Life is eternally creative, full of miracles and revelations, ever new and ever deeper, infinite and inexhaustible (Bowers 1973, 6). According to Schloezer, Scriabin argued that the commonly accepted view of art was too narrow, its true meaning lost, and its significance obscured. . . . Art is either religious or nonexistent, he argued, for its subject, beauty, is an imprint of spirit upon matter, which is a definitely religious concept. The religious nature of art was to Scriabin the source of its active power. (Schloezer 1987, 234) Foreshadowing Scriabins path and revealing a central aspect of his philosophy is the text to the finale of his First Symphony, Op. 26 a choral Hymn to Art: O, wonderful image of the Divine, pure art of harmonies, we praise thee fervently with ecstatic emotion. . . . Thy free and mighty spirit rules over the earth. By exalting thee, man performs glorious deeds. Gather together, all ye nations of the earth, sing the praises of Art! Praise be to Art! Praise be forever! (Maes 2002, 211) To Schloezer this text represents a preliminary sketch of the Mysterium. In it Scriabin expressed for the first time, in a definite and fully intentional design, his idea of the unifying, illuminating, and transfiguring power of art, which became the dominant concept of his philosophy of life [my emphasis] (Schloezer 1987, 162).

Fortunately, many of Scriabins journals are available, and thus here are provided some of the passages most frequently quoted, relating to the cosmos, himself, creativity, the future, and God. Since his ideas are often difficult to comprehend (at least on first reading), I find it necessary to reprint them verbatim and bring about whatever understanding is possible in short, to let his words speak in lieu of mine. The following passages are excerpted from Schloezers book, and relate to Scriabins ideas of the creative process as it relates to consciousness: To create is to discriminate. All states of consciousness are connected by this act of discrimination. . . . To experience a certain state of consciousness is to separate it from other states of consciousness, only in relation to which it can exist. It is impossible to describe a creative act by words alone. All that exists is my creation. But it exists only in its creatures, with which it is identical. . . . Abstract concepts, such as existence, essence, etc., fail by far to express the meaning of world reality. Further excerpts from Schloezer come from 1903-05 the time during which Scriabin composed his 3rd and 4th symphonies, The Divine Poem and The Poem of Ecstasy, and during which the Mysterium concept was already alive in his mind. The universe represents the unconscious process of my creative work. The sensory world is a part of it, illuminated by my attention. I am nothing, I have a will to live. Through the force of my desire I create myself and my feeling for life. . . . All is in us, and in us only. O you, the depths of the past born in the rays of my memory. O you, the summits of the future created by my dream: you do not exist; you constantly dance and change, just as my desire, free and unique, dances and changes. I am free. . . . I want to create, create consciously. . . . I want to enthrall the world by my creative work, by its wondrous beauty. I want to be the brightest imaginable light, the largest sun. I want to illumine the universe by my light. I want to engulf everything and absorb everything in my individuality. I want to give delight to the world. . . . I need the world. I am what my senses feel. And I create the world by these senses. I create the infinite past, . . . I create the infinite future, . . . I am nothing. I am only what I create. The destiny of the universe is clear. . . . I love life. I am God. I am nothing. I want to be all. . . .

. . . . There exists only one universal consciousness [my emphasis], in which an individual finds himself, according to the content that this consciousness experiences at a certain moment of time at a certain point in space. . . . The true center of the universe is the all-embracing consciousness [my emphasis]. Our past, which had not yet reached the level of consciousness, and our future are parts of this consciousness. The past and the future emanate from it, as does the infinity of space. They exist only as attributes of creation. The universe is identical with Gods will and is created by God. God is an all-embracing consciousness, a free creative impulse. Insofar as I am conscious of the world as my creation, everything must be the product of my free will, and nothing can exist outside me. I am an absolute being. All the rest are phenomena born in the rays of my consciousness. (Schloezer 1987, 122-5) In his declaration that the past and future are only attributes of creation, Scriabin displays the influence of Eastern thought, in its view of time as an illusion. This would later inform his belief in the flexibility of time and the ability of music (or art in general) to stop it or telescope it. Eastern ideology, via both Theosophy and Hinduism, is also evident in his declaration I am God, a phrase which is often removed from its context and cited to reveal Scriabins excessive egotism. The Secret Doctrine by Helena Blavatsky, one of the handbooks of Theosophy, proclaims the tenet of The fundamental identity of all Souls with the Universal OverSoul (1888, 17). Richard Hooker explains the Hindu view: the key to understanding the nature of the one unitary principle of the universe is to see one's (undying) self as identical with Brahman: aham asmi Brahman: I am Brahman (Hooker 1996). Thus Scriabins sentiment is perfectly in line with Hinduism, and as such could only be categorized by other religions as blasphemous. If one holds the view that there is one consciousness, the universe itself and all strata of existence which is the divine, or God then everything must contain that consciousness and thus divinity. Hence, as this was Scriabins view, were anyone to have approached him saying I am God, he should have found it totally acceptable. Scriabin specifies two different versions of I in much of his writing his personal I and the universal I that he beheld in himself, the universal consciousness that is God, or the universe, which he also occasionally labeled the Unique. Another of Scriabins journals, quoted by Schloezer, describes the two Is: In time and in space I obey the laws of time and space, but these laws are formulated by my greater I. It seems to me that the only reason events do not follow my wishes is that I am concentrated on my little I, which must be

subordinated to the laws of time and space created by my greater I. (Schloezer 1987, 125) Further adding to the potentially confusing complexity of these ideas is Scriabins equation of the two Is. Though he speaks frequently in such paradoxical dualities, many of his writings also declare that whichever two things under discussion are in fact one. While this may seem contradictory, it does inform us of Scriabins view that all is one, and thus of his desire to create oneness in all things music, beliefs, life, art, people, etc. In other words, when his dualistic discussions become paradoxical, underlying oneness is often the source of the paradox. Both Scriabins philosophies (often appearing in quotes) and his poetry reveal the elevated spirit that constantly filled him. All who were close to Scriabin sensed a palpitating, intoxicating joy in him (Schloezer 1987, 127). Scriabin was reportedly exhilarated upon finding a person with whom he could share his immense joy and his excitement about his plans and about life in general. The depth of his joy and his plans for it are clearly stated in one of Scriabins own exclamations, recorded in the same book: If I impart to the world but a single grain of my joy, its jubilation will never cease (Schloezer 1987, 127). This sentiment is also provided by Bowers from another of Scriabins journals: My joy is so vast that myriads of universes could sink into it without even rippling the surface (1973, 126). Scriabins poetry, dating back to his youth, reveals idealism and ecstasy and foreshadows his future plans even before they were consciously formulated. As he matured and his ideas grew clearer in his mind, he attached increasing importance to creative freedom. Biographers ascribe this in part to his having been raised by his doting aunt and grandmother his mother, an accomplished concert pianist, having died when Scriabin was a year old. His father, a military man, was simply not around, serving abroad in the Army his entire life thus they remained largely unacquainted. Scriabin is said to have been pampered as a child, given the best of everything, and encouraged absolutely in his creativity attributable in part, biographers claim, to his guardians pity at his unfortunate situation. From this atmosphere of love and encouragement grew Scriabins later confidence (or arrogance) and all-embracing creative nature. He also found support and inspiration in the poetry of others, particularly friends like the symbolists Alexander Blok and Viacheslav Ivanov. Some of the poetry from Scriabins day is reflective of his own views and, in the case of Ivanov, even synaesthesia. Other poets wrote apocalyptically of the political atmosphere and revolution in Russia. While Scriabins spiritual joy is said to have remained constant regardless of events around him, his work and thoughts do reflect to some extent his environment a combination of child-like ecstasy and apocalyptic dreams.

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A born Romantic, Scriabin claimed to have been in love at the age of eight (Bowers 1973, 25). His earliest poem was written at age 15, and, Bowers says, contains the genesis of all his later escapism, as well as the visionary aspect of his ideation. Oh country of visions! How different from this life Where I have no place But there, I hear voices, A world of beatitudinous souls I see. (Bowers 1973, 119-20) He fell in love again at age 20 with Natalya Sekerina, and wrote another poem which was set to music and published under the title Romance the only extant attempt Scriabin made at the art song: I wish I occupied your soul Just for an instant, like a beautiful dream. I wish I could outrage the calmness Of your heart by an outbreak of passion. To turn your charming head With an inspiring idea, And give you, my beloved friend, The entire world of blissful happiness! And give you, my beloved friend, The entire world of blissful happiness! (Ter-Mikaelian 1994, 15) The repeated closing couplet is obviously premonitory, with the desire to make a gift of a world of bliss. Interestingly, among Scriabins oeuvre there are more instrumental musical pieces called poems or pomes, as he preferred than there are poems of written verse. The majority of the instrumental pomes are short character pieces for solo piano, noticeably more progressive than his earlier Chopinesque Preludes and tudes. They occupy primarily the latter half of Scriabins works. The first use in his catalogue of the title pome occurs with the Deux pomes, Op. 32, for solo piano written in 1903. Scriabins piano sonatas followed the same trend as his orchestral works, growing progressively shorter until finally acquiring a single-movement form. While the piano works retained the label sonata, the orchestral works he designated pomes, calling his 3rd, 4th and 5th symphonies, respectively, Le pome divin, Op. 43 (The
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Divine Poem), Le pome de lextase, Op. 54 (The Poem of Ecstasy) and Promthe, Le pome du feu, Op. 60 (Prometheus, The Poem of Fire). While The Divine Poem and Prometheus were purely instrumental pomes, The Poem of Ecstasy was preceded by an actual, written poem. It was not set to the music, nor did Scriabin attempt to fit the music to the verse. Regardless, Schloezer comments: I remember the pleasure and surprise he felt when the music was fully free yet followed the development of the text . . . (Bowers 1995, 3). As Scriabin was more musician than poet in better command of musical sounds the music conveys the spirit with more strength. However a reading of the complete text is a rewarding prelude to a listening of the piece. The Poem of Ecstasy provides a picture of Scriabins spiritual joy and illustrates his full awareness of the power and potential danger of creativity itself. From the Theosophical perspective, Good and Evil are twins; one cannot exist without the other (Blavatsky 1888, 96). From an intuitive understanding of this notion (not influence by it) Scriabin knew that to gain total creative freedom would mean to bring to light the darker aspects of the subconscious as well as the bright, joyful ones. He was unafraid. This sentiment, central to his philosophy and personality, is embodied in the famous lines about summoning hidden longings to life lines he used as an epigraph to the score of his fifth piano sonata, Op. 53, which also sometimes appears with the subtitle Poem of Ecstasy. According to Bowers in his note to the score of The Poem of Ecstasy, the subject of the text is the spirit or soul, symbolic of Scriabin himself as Man-God the Creator, whose ecstasy and liberation he gives to us (1995, 3) again the gift of bliss. After the spirit traverses a world of feelings from torment to ravishment, its ultimate transmutation is frankly sexual and the Poem ends orgasmically in self-assertion: I AM! Excerpted here are passages from the text version of Le pome de lextase: Spirit, Winged with thirst for life, Is drawn into flight On the summits of negation. There, under the rays of its dream, Emerges a magical world Of heavenly forms and feelings Spirit playing, Spirit desiring. Spirit creating all with a dream. Surrenders to the bliss of love. Mid the risen creations
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It dwells in languor, From the height of inspiration Calls them to flower. And drunken with soaring It is ready to sink into oblivion. But suddenly . . . Trembling presentiments Of dark rhythm Break rudely into This enchanted world, but only for an instant. Spirit playing, Spirit caressing, Spirit calling hope of joy Surrenders to the bliss of love. Mid the flowers of its creation, It lingers with a kiss Over a whole world of titillation Summons it to ecstasy. . Delighting in this dance, Choking in its vortex. Unmindful of goals Beloved aspirations Spirit surrenders to playful drunkenness. On powerful wings It speeds Into realms of new discovery Of Ecstasy. I summon you to life, Hidden longings! You, sunken In the somber depths Of creative spirit, You timid embryos Of life,

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To you I bring Daring! ...... I create you, This complex unity This feeling of bliss Seizing you completely. I am the instant illumining eternity I am the affirmation. I am Ecstasy. The universe Is embraced in flames Spirit at the summit of its being Feels Endless tides Of divine power Of free will. Emboldened, That which menaced Is now seduction. That which frightened Is now pleasure. And the bites of panther and hyena Are new caresses And the serpents sting Is but a burning kiss. And thus the universe resounds With joyful cry I AM! (Bowers 1995, 3-7) As Schloezer was for Scriabin a philosophical consultant of sorts, Scriabin shared poetic ideas with Blok and Ivanov. Both shared with Scriabin a general sense of the Apocalyptic zeitgeist of revolutionary Russia, and doubtless their poetry affected Scriabin in terms of his art, his ideas and his goals and vice versa. It is unclear on whom the influence was stronger, but a mental, emotional and spiritual affinity between the artists is clear. The following poem is a brief example from Blok written in January 1902, published in the book Collected Poems:

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There is so little time left for us To marvel at these banquets here: mysteries shall unfold before us, And distant worlds shine in the air. (Miller 1981, 46) In Bowers book The New Scriabin, he offers an excerpt from a revolutionary Blok poem, cited by Victor Delson as a suitable epigraph for the entirety of Scriabins works: Oh Spring without end and limitless Without end and limitless dream! I know you, life! I accept! And greet you with the ring of battleshield! (Bowers 1973, 9) In Alfred Swans book, Scriabin, he tells of the meeting at a 1909 concert in Moscow between the composer and Viacheslav Ivanov. The poetry of Ivanov revealed a cosmic conception with which Scriabin had long felt a great affinity, and the two became lifelong friends (Swan 1969, 44). One example of Ivanovs poetry, The Lips of Dawn, taken from Robert Birds The Russian Prospero, hints simultaneously at mystery, the ecstasy of love, and synaesthesia: The Lips of Dawn Like lips the crimson dawn does burn: The tender mystery speaks in silence. Do you hear the wise honey of the golden word? The sun is rising in fiery silence. Your lips were granted the dawns crimson color, So that your lips might bear a word of light. Seal them with the screen of dawn: Speak only in gold and honey. (Bird 2006, 74) The Ivanov-Scriabin connection holds further significance. Bird points out that the tender mystery is one of Ivanovs images borrowed by Scriabin (2006, 276). Ivanov also expressed the essence of the ancient Eleusinian Mysteries in his poem Eleusinian Spring. Besides poetry, Ivanovs prose often reflected Scriabinesque ideas like the Mysterium even in recommendations for governmental policies: It is necessary to strive to adapt the popular celebrations to the forms of
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rite, lending it the character of cogent lyrical-dramatic unity that develops its main idea in the harmonious continuity of the whole (Bird 2006, 33). In the Mysterium idea can be found more common ground. Bird states that Ivanov had a particular influence on Scriabins plan for the Mysterium, even being instrumental in encouraging him to first write the Acte pralable to prepare humanity. He further posits that Ivanovs entire poem Man should properly be seen as a defense of Scriabins unfinished Mysterium. . . . the ultimate intervention of an artist in ritual, which elevates Ivanovs poetry to a level of great theosophical abstraction (Bird 2006, 30, 87). Reminiscent of Scriabin, too, is Ivanovs drama Prometheus, originally published in 1915 titled The Sons of Prometheus. Twelve days after Scriabins death in 1915, Ivanov wrote a commemorative poem. But perhaps most touching about the twos friendship is the defense by Ivanov of Scriabin following his demise. Ivanov found himself defending his own poem Man and Scriabins work on similar terms. Bird continues, Positing Scriabins Mysterium as a new sacramental rite, Ivanov tirelessly devoted himself to a defense of its legitimacy in the years following Scriabins death (2006, 113). One such defense was against a biographer who had personally known Scriabin. Leonid Sabaneyev, having criticized the Mysterium as egomaniacal, was served with the following retort from Ivanov: He did not imagine that he would unite people through himself but most definitely despite himself, outside of himself, by an automatic and miraculous movement of the collective spirit in those who had gathered, for whom he prepared in his Mysterium only a kind of material for a sacramental rite. And his very writing of the Mysterium was for him an inward impossibility until the hour when his I had melted and been destroyed and his theurgic hand had become but the obedient tool of the Divine Will that had accepted the sacrifice of his person. (1917: 19-20) (Bird 2006, 113)

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III. Prometheus Synaesthesia & The Mystic Chord

Synaesthesia (or synesthesia), as defined on Dictionary.com, is a sensation produced in one modality when a stimulus is applied to another modality, as when the hearing of a certain sound induces the visualization of a certain color. While other examples are also possible colored pain, tasting or smelling shapes, etc. Scriabin is famously known for his photism, another term for the sound-color version of synaethesia. However, the authenticity of Scriabins synaesthesia is disputed. Kevin T. Dann, author of Bright Colors Falsely Seen, is one such disputer. There is actually no evidence that Scriabin was a synaesthete, and considerable evidence to the contrary. Scriabins equivalences of color and tones rather too neatly follow a circle of fifths, that is, his colors proceed in intervals of a fifth (rather than stepwise diatonically) up the scale as they increase in wavelength. . . . No true chromaesthete has such a systematic arrangement of color-tone equivalences. . . . According to nearly every writer on both synaesthesia and Scriabin, Scriabin was a chromaesthete, and the color arrangement for Prometheus followed his individual schema of color-sound equivalences. (Dann 1998, 71) In reality there is some evidence available as to Scriabins synaesthesia, assuming we can take his word for it. Cretien van Campen, in The Hidden Sense, relates an interview with Scriabin by the London psychologist Charles Myers, wherein Scriabin told of the beginnings of his synaesthetic perception. It began during a concert, seated next to Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, another of historys synaesthetes. Scriabin apparently noticed that the performed piece in D-minor appeared yellow to him, and he mentioned this to Rimsky-Korsakov whereupon his colleague replied that the piece appeared to him to be of a golden color. Scriabin said that from that moment on, he started to pay special attention to the color effects of different tonalities. He realized that he had spontaneous color perceptions while listening to pieces in the keys of C, D, and F-sharp. Music in the key of C corresponded with red, D with yellow, and F-sharp with blue. A

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single note apart from tonality had no color for Scriabin. (van Campen 2008, 52) Further, the more intensely emotional Scriabin felt during a passage of music, the more vivid would be the musics corresponding color. A major part of Danns evidence against Scriabins synaesthesia is its having been borrowed, allegedly, from H.P. Blavatsky, one of the founders of Theosophy and Scriabins most prominent Theosophical influence. [Scriabin] adopted wholesale the table of color-note correspondences from Blavatskys Secret Doctrine: CRedcorresponding to Power; DOrangeenergy; EYellowIntellect; FGreenSympathy; GBlueDevotion; A-IndigoSelfless Love; BViolet Psychism. Reading Blavatskys accompanying assertion that the best psychics can perceive colours produced by the vibrations of musical instruments, every note suggesting a different colour (Blavatsky, 1888, vol. 3, p. 145), Scriabin assumed these colors as his own, employing the colors for keys, not individual notes. (Dann 1998, 73) Scriabins schema of color-sound equivalences, according to key, is shown here in its typical incarnation as a wheel. Note that while Dann provides only a partial list from Blavatskys color scheme, there are no matches in evidence other than C:

Scriabins Key-Color Wheel from website http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ commons/2/2d/Scriabin-Circle.png 18

Further contrast can be made between an alternate version of Scriabins wheel and Blavatskys scheme in terms of the keys corresponding natural and mental attributes:

Scriabins Key-Color Wheel showing corresponding natural and human attributes from website http://prometheus.kai.ru/IMAGES/krg_e.gif

Whether Scriabin was truly a synaesthete is likely an unanswerable question or, a mystery. No two peoples perceptions can be shared. Blue may appear to one person exactly as red to another without either person knowing it is simply impossible to see the world through the eyes of another. Thus if one wishes not to believe that Scriabins synaethesia was genuine, then one must, for the present exploration, consider it Scriabins desire to synthesize the senses. It became a reality with his Fifth Symphony, Prometheus The Poem of Fire, the first multi-media composition actually calling for light effects in the score (Bowers 1973, 191). Hence he conceived and designed a light keyboard, also referred to as the Color Organ, Clavier Lumieres, Tastiera per Luce, or, as printed in the score, simply Luce:

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Opening of Prometheus, fragment of full score. (Scriabin 1995, 119)

Synaesthesia itself was not new in the time of Scriabin. According to Grove Music Online, many notable figures from history have theorized on the relations between color and sound, among them Aristotle, Rameau, Castel, Newton, Telemann, Diderot, Rousseau and Voltaire. Newton, as van Campen reveals, attempted to equate the distribution of white light in the color spectrum to that of the musical tones in an octave, as shown by Newtons illustration:

Sir Isaac Newtons illustration of color-tone correspondences, 1675. (van Campen 2008, 47)

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Nor was Scriabins idea of the color organ the first. Grove Music Online credits the first concept for such an instrument to Johann Gottlob Krger, who [in 1743] made the first recorded sketch of a Farbenclavecymbel or colour harpsichord which would produce music to delight the eye as a counterpart to music for the ear(Jewanski 2009). Van Campen refers to the same instrument as an ocular harpsichord.

Johann Gottlob Krgers ocular harpsichord design, 1743. (van Campen 2008, 48)

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However, nothing was built from Krgers sketches. Van Campen credits the first use of the phrase Colour-Organ in 1893 to a London professor, Alexander Wallace Rimington (see illustration). This silent instrument was subsequently used in several concerts accompanying the music of Wagner, Chopin, Bach and Dvork (van Campen 2008, 50).

(van Campen 2008, 51)

Louis-Bertrand Castel, a French mathematician and philosopher who devised his own color-note scheme and rejected that of Newton, demonstrated in 1754 his clavecin oculaire, or optical harpsichord. Every key on the instrument, when pressed, opened up a shaft through which coloured light passed (Jewanski 2009). Regardless of historical precedents, Scriabins own conception of the colorkey scheme and his treatment of it in Prometheus suggest that there was little, if any, direct outside influence on his ideas. The image of his own design of the clavier

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lumieres further attests to the lack of influence, and also brings to light the subtle semantic emphasis that distinguishes a color-organ from a color-organ:

Scriabins Clavier Lumieres a simplistic design consisting of a ring of colored bulbs connected to a beam of corresponding buttons from website http://prometheus.kai.ru/IMAGES/Fig1b.jpg

One cannot describe the color-scheme of Prometheus without also examining its harmonic language a language that infused the vast majority of Scriabins late works. As Prometheus married light to sound, so Scriabins musical vocabulary synthesized melody and harmony. In Bowers note to the Dover score of Prometheus, Scriabin declares There is no difference between melody and harmony. . . . They are one and the same(1995, 113). Scriabins famed Mystic chord, initially a hexatonic chord consisting of perfect and altered fourths, resembles an embellished dominant chord. Pictured here is the reduced and complete chord at the opening of Prometheus:

The Mystic chord inverted tonality: A. (Bowers 1973, 170)

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A more commonly featured spelling of this chord, as rooted on C, is:

The Mystic chord in root position tonality: C. from website http://media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-media/85/2885-004-8A6A2943.gif

In its root position, from the bass upward the Mystic chord consists of the following intervals: raised 4th (or lowered 5th), 7th, 10th, 13th, and compound 9th. While the chord does not adhere to the rules of functional harmony, traditional analysis would label it a dominant thirteenth chord with a raised 4th / lowered 5th. This chord and extensions and alterations of it forms the basis of Scriabins harmonic system from around Op. 50 onward, though examples of the sonority exist in earlier works as early as Opus 32. (Bowers cites Enigma Op. 52 No. 2, written in 1907, as Scriabins first piece written entirely from the new system). A key feature of this sonority is its restless tonal ambiguity. With its dominant sound, it is unstable and seems to seek resolution. But in the same manner that Scriabin aimed to synthesize the senses, his new harmonic language synthesized formerly dissonant tones the 11th, 13th and 14th partial tones into the family of consonances (Swan 1969, 99). In Scriabins system it was therefore no longer necessary to provide traditional harmonic resolutions. By deriving melodies from these harmonies (and vice versa) and transposing and permutating the chord throughout a composition, it remained possible to create movement. The result is the delightful aural paradox of a sonority that simultaneously remains the same and constantly changes. To further destabilize such chords, he often inverted them, placing the seventh in the bass position as in the opening chord of Prometheus previously pictured. Bowers declares, He did this for the obscure, misty effect that he wanted. . . . This highlights what [Lev] Danilevich [another Scriabin biographer] proclaims as the most important factor in Scriabin, the fact that you cannot define his harmony on the basis of what it sounds like. . . . The tonality of the chord is A, and Scriabin saw the color green (as he marked the score of Prometheus) when it sounded. (Bowers 1973, 170)

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The term tonality here must also be loosely applied. Bowers also cites the 1968 breaking of Scriabins code of chordal and melodic construction by Varvara Pavlovna Dernova. He summarizes her findings succinctly, describing the system as tritone links in enharmonic sequences which, in turn, produce whole-tone and whole-tone-half-tone scales (Bowers 1973, 131). In essence, Scriabins system continues the historical tradition of the liberation of the dissonance, rather logically expanding on it. The instability of the tritone interval is central to the ambiguity of his new sonorities. Even the dual-tritone found in the French augmented sixth chord appears frequently throughout Scriabins earlier works, though its traditional resolution becomes progressively less frequent. The mystic chord grew to incorporate more dissonances into the realm of consonance. Other extended dominant sonorities were realized, including that with a lowered 9th, and a perfect and diminished 5th above the chord identical to the polychord which consists of two major chords whose roots are a tritone apart, referred to colloquially as the Petrushka chord. Scriabins spelling of the chord is significant as well, spreading out the tritones that make up the chord:

The Petrushka chord in compact form and spread out as in Scriabins voicing. (Bowers 1973, 137)

As Bowers points out, the chords as voiced in the second system of the illustration were used in Scriabins Prelude Op. 74 No. 1, written in 1914. The Preludes of Op. 74, his last set of compositions, were among those whose material was slated for inclusion in the Mysterium, and then transferred to the Acte pralable. Further, in the Acte pralable, Bowers mentions, there is a chord consisting of three different major-seventh chords, rooted respectively on D, A and C#, over the root note F (1973, 97). Scriabins continued liberation of dissonance is thus an important precursor to 12-tone techniques. Bowers quotes Boris Schwarz saying, Had it not

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been for the premature death of Scriabin in 1915, Moscow might have become a citadel of atonality, side by side with Vienna (1973, 132). Perhaps the mysticism of the mystic chord is most vivid with Prometheus, widely claimed to be Scriabins masterpiece. The New Scriabin recounts Leonid Sabaneyevs description of Scriabins own excitement about the work, from a conversation between the composer and Koussevitsky: You know, I have lights in Prometheus. [He whispered the word lights.] I will play it for you. Lights. Its a poem of fire. Here the hall has changing colors. Now they glow; now they turn into tongues of flame. Listen how all this music is really fire. (Bowers 1973, 191) Prometheus is rife with symbolism with a hint of Wagner in its leitmotif-like use of themes and with its color-sound equation and programmatic associations, foreshadows the total-sensory synthesis he planned for the Mysterium. As Bowers explains, the opening chord represents primordial nothing, or Original Chaos, the universe before lives have been lived. The first theme represents the Creative Principle, the solo trumpet theme is Will, and another is the Dawn of Human Consciousness. Other themes include the Play of the Creative Spirit, the theme of Activity and Movement, and Ego. The moment that spirit descends into matter is represented musically by the interval of a descending minor ninth. Matter ascending becoming spirit is affected by upward transposition of a fourth. Thus much of the music is concerned with materialization and de-materialization. Specific instruments are also assigned special significance. The piano represents Man or the microcosm, while the orchestra symbolizes the Cosmos or the macrocosm. All themes derive from the original harmony and represent such metaphysical and erotic states as sexual languor, magical exorcism and the stopping of time (Bowers 1973, 192-3). In his note to the score of Prometheus, Bowers describes the significance of the Prometheus of mythology and his relation to Lucifer (who is significant to Theosophy), revealing clues about Scriabins egotism (at this point in his career) and his view of Mans place in the universe. Prometheus, according to Greek mythology and Aeschylus, was the Titan who captured sparks from the wheels of Apollos sun-chariot as it raced through the sky. In defiance of the gods of Olympus, Prometheus gave this stolen fire the sacred flame of wisdom to mortals, endowing man with divinity. For his defiance, Prometheus was chained to Mount Caucasus where an eagle or vulture plucked out his liver. To Scriabin, Prometheus was the same as Lucifer, the fallen Archangel who refused to submit to God and was expelled from heaven. As he fell to earth,
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he streaked the sky with light and became the Morning Star, or Venus, . . . . Prometheus and Lucifer were prototypes of rebellion. The fire and light they bestowed on man made vision possible, and allowed him to be equal with, if not superior to, God and the gods. . . . (Bowers 1995, 113) Scriabins love of synthesis extended to visual images as well. He commissioned an artist Theosophist from Brussels, Jean Delville, for the cover of the full score and two-piano reduction of Promethueus, which Bowers further describes as the most densely Theosophical piece of music ever written. The image is shown here with Bowers explanation of its symbolism, though the incorporation of all religions, at least as shown in this image, is questionable:

[Scriabins] design . . . shows a lyre (the world symbolized by music)

rising from a lotus flower (the womb or mind of Asia). Over a Star of David, the ancient symbol of Lucifer according to Theosophy, shines the face of Prometheus. Thus the composer incorporated into his world-view all religions, including Sons of the Flame of Wisdom, Theosophys secret cult to which both Scriabin and Delville belonged. (Bowers 1995, 113)

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IV. Theosophy
There is no religion higher than truth. - motto of the Maharajah of Benares, adopted by the Theosophical Society The term Theosophy derives from the Greek word theosophia, which stems from theos, meaning god or divinity and sophia, meaning wisdom. Thus it means divine wisdom, or the knowledge of things divine. The website of The Theosophical Society describes such wisdom as attainable by direct experience, by becoming conscious of the essential, divine part of our nature, self-identification with the inner god, leading to communion with other similar divine beings. Another primary Theosophical idea is that of the oneness of all beings. Theosophy holds the notion that everything in the cosmos, from the galaxies down to subatomic particles, is alive, evolving, and springs from the same divine source. Theosophy emerged in late 19th-century Russia, its Society co-founded by Helena Blavatsky, Henry S. Olcott and William Q. Judge. Blavatsky, with her Theosophical guidebook, The Secret Doctrine, is today practically synonymous with Theosophy itself. The number of books about The Secret Doctrine (abbreviated SD) is comparable to the number of other Theosophical texts, owing to its challenging wordage. Its two volumes are subtitled Cosmogenesis and Anthropogenesis, and constitute Blavatskys most significant contribution to Theosophy. A companion to the SD by Virginia Hanson a collection of articles by students of Theosophy more learned in the subject than the present writer was helpful in clarifying Blavatskys tract. Theosophical ideas come primarily from ancient literature esoteric or occult literature and ancient religious texts, among them the sacred Upanishads and Vedic scriptures of Hinduism, said to be around 3,200 years old (though its oral tradition may be as old as 25,000 years); the Sepher Yetsirah, or the Book of Creation, a Hebrew text called by The Theosophical Sociey "the most occult of all the Kabalistic works now in the possession of modern mystics; and the Zohar, or the Hebrew Book of Light, which paired with the Sepher Yetsirah forms the main canon of the Qabbalah. (It is important to note the origin of the term occult and its original meaning, before common use appended the connotations of sorcery, astrology and the supernatural; it derives from the Latin word occulere, meaning to hide from view, cover up).
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Some texts, particularly the Book of Dzyan on which Blavatskys SD is based are said to have been compiled from older sources, among them the Kiu-ti (or Kiute), which in turn was created from an unnamed but very old Book (Blavatsky 1888, xliii), around 5,000 years old. These texts are said to be the foundations of the worlds oldest religions the Indian, Mazdean, Egyptian and Chaldean (Babylonian) and thence all subsequent religions. They are written in ancient languages (some forgotten) such as Senzar, Sanskrit, Chaldean, Hebrew and Tibetan. The sources of the literature are said to be hidden in caves throughout the world or stored safely in monasteries, away from the eyes of the profane. Those somewhat familiar with Eastern religions or philosophies will recognize some Theosophical ideas and terms, such as reincarnation and karma. According to the Theosophical Society, reincarnation was present in many traditions including Platonic philosophy, Judaism, and early Christianity, where it was not excluded from Church teachings until the 6th century (1996). A clear summation of the purpose of Theosophy comes from Blavatskys explanation of the SD: The aim of this work may be thus stated: to show that Nature is not a fortuitous concurrence of atoms, and to assign to man his rightful place in the scheme of the Universe; to rescue from degradation the archaic truths which are the basis of all religions; and to uncover, to some extent, the fundamental unity from which they all spring; finally, to show that the occult side of Nature has never been approached by the Science of modern civilization. (Blavatsky 1888, viii) Theosophy challenges science in many ways for example, its account of the evolution of man. It posits the notion that man was the first of the mammals, including the anthropoid, and that mans physical form on earth was preceded by its astral form, and modeled after it. The SD even cites the Bible for support of the notion Adam is created in Genesis 2:7, and in verse 19, the Lord God formed from the soil every kind of animal and bird. He brought them to Adam to see what he would call them, and Adam chose a name for each one (Holy Bible NLT, 4). The SD states, Thus man was created before the animals; for the animals mentioned in chapter I are the signs of the Zodiac . . . (Blavatsky 1888, 1). Highly significant to Scriabin was the notion of seven root-races, of which our modern race is apparently the fifth. As expounded by Blavatsky, and further clarified by Adam Warcups article in the Hanson collection, the first two races are said to have been completely astral, without physical bodies, and while exact figures are not given they apparently lived for hundreds of millions of years. While the literature does not name the first race, the second was the Hyperborean, and both are said to
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have lived in the far north and reproduced by asexual means such as fission or budding, like many lower organisms extant today. They did not have a mind as we know it. The third root-race were the Lemurians, who were also initially hermaphroditic, though midway through their evolution (around 18 million years ago) their evolution reached the division of the sexes and the awakening of the mind. To give an idea of time-scale, the beginning of the third root-race is said to have been around 22 to 23 million years ago. The second and third races receive their names from the continents they inhabited, namely Hyperborea and Lemuria. The first race and the Lemurians were destroyed by fire, though the literature does not provide details as to the destruction of the Hyperborean race. The fourth race, which overlapped with the third, inhabited the continent of Atlantis. As such they are known as the Atlanteans, and their purportedly massive stature has been connected with the traditional notion of giants in Earths far antiquity even the Bible mentions giants on the Earth in Genesis 6:4. The Atlanteans are said to have represented the highest material level of civilization, surpassing even modern society. In the modern view, the story of Atlantis is a myth, and the legended fate of the great continent is that it perished beneath the sea. Theosophy further claims that evil and black magic were prominent among the Atlanteans and that the wiser, benevolent members of the race had escaped to parts of Asia before the deluge, to become the forefathers of such races as the Turanian, Mongol and Chinese. The total duration of the Atlanteans, according to the Theosophical Society, was millions of years, meeting its end in the middle Miocene period which according to science lasted from around 26 million to 5 million years ago. The current race of humans occupying the globe constitutes the fifth rootrace. Descendents of the Atlanteans are said to live among us, since the races overlapped as with Lemurians before. It is consistent in Theosophy that each new race manifests on an Earth whose appearance has completely changed lands that were submerged rise to the surface, and vice versa. Consistent with this view it is predicted that when the sixth root-race rises to prominence, new lands will have appeared and many lands now extant will be submerged. The sixth and seventh races are predicted to become steadily less physical and once again more spiritual, returning to androgyny, and acquiring additional senses and the ability to propagate through will and imagination. The seventh race will herald the arrival of the Maitreya Buddha, the Eastern equivalent of the Second Coming. According to Theosophy, the arrival of the Maitreya is a universal belief in the East. The end of the seventh race will also herald the end of a Manvantara, a period of universal expansion, which will later be described in more detail.

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It is also important, perhaps by way of warning, to note that massive geological changes of the earth occur between each evolution of the races the Theosophical Society refers to the cyclic hour for the climax of the geologic changes in the earth's surface (1996). Logically the fifth (our) race will give way to the sixth through similar means, and while the sixth race has apparently begun to appear, it will purportedly not dominate the globe for thousands of years. While positing these claims, Theosophy also reminds that there are many aspects of mans evolution for which science cannot account. As Adam Warcups article in the Hanson collection explains, the physical forms of man and animals were preceded by their astral prototypes, and further that animals became physical before man and thus left fossilized remains, creating the appearance of other mammals before man. Theosophy also points out that the fossil record, while providing some evidence, is incomplete and inconclusive and that Darwins theory is just a theory. Further, in some instances where science does not provide an explanation, Theosophy does. Observed fact and the fossil record indicate that evolution appears to develop in bursts (Warcup 1988, 154) the theory known as punctuated equilibria. A new species seems to arise suddenly, followed by many variations based on the new type. Science is at a loss to account for such sudden leaps in development (Warcup 1988, 154). The SDs explanation of this phenomenon is that new species arise on the basis of new astral prototypes which are projected into the physical world at periodic intervals (Warcup 1988, 154). The Day and Night of Brahma, Theosophical terminology borrowed from Hinduism, are also known as the Great Breath. It is the notion that the universe itself expands and contracts and is without beginning or end. The duality of expansion and contraction is paralleled throughout existence in other dualities: day and night, sleeping and waking, life and death. The exhalation of the Great Breath creates existence, while an inhalation dissolves it into nothingness. This produces the periods of Evolution and Dissolution, Manvantara and Pralaya (Blavatsky 1888, 12). A Manvantara corresponds to a Day of Brahma, Pralaya to a Night of Brahma. The Theosophical Society explains that in the first half of a Manvantara is the descent of spirit into matter; the second half involves the ascent of spirit at the expense of matter. In Hansons companion book, an article by Hugh Murdoch cites a Blavatsky quote from an ancient Tamil calendar, giving the period of each Day and Night of Brahma as 4,320 million years or 8,640 million years for a complete cycle. The Night is regarded as a period of Pralaya or rest when no life is manifest (Murdoch 1988, 133). Esoteric texts consistently state that a Pralaya, a period of absolute non-Being, is so far beyond human understanding that contemplation of it is pointless, even foolish. Murdoch further explains that the Tamil calendar calls the present age of the universe about 2,000 million years, but Blavatsky says this should
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only apply to the earth. Science, on the other hand, estimates the age of the earth at around 5,000 million years and that of the universe at 10,000 million years. Such figures are quite in disagreement with the few thousands of years posited by some sections of the Christian church, and also with the scientific estimate of the 1920s of a universe ten million million years old. Note that these are 1988 figures, primarily presented to illustrate the time-scale discrepancies between Theosophy, religion and modern science. Differences aside, the notion of the Great Breath is now echoed in modern science as the concept of the oscillating universe. It is interesting to note, as Murdoch points out, that even the idea of the universes expansion was not seriously considered by the scientific community until about 35 years after the SD had been published in 1888. Even in 2009, the concept of the oscillating universe is a dominant theory, modern science having caught up with the Hindu cosmogony which dates back several thousand years. Another discrepancy emerges here as well: while the Tamil calendar quoted by Blavatsky clocks the complete cycle of Day & Night of Brahma at around 8,640 million years, modern science has suggested it is around 80,000 million years. Referring to the SD, Blavatsky states: the teachings . . . contained in these volumes, belong neither to the Hindu, the Zoroastrian, the Chaldean, nor the Egyptian religion, neither to Buddhism, Islam, Judaism nor Christianity exclusively. The Secret Doctrine is the essence of all these. (Blavatsky 1888, viii) Thus Theosophys unacceptability to Christianity is immediately apparent likewise with most religions in their tendency to view the others as incorrect. While it does not belong to any particular religion, Hinduism is the dominant religious influence in Theosophy, evidenced in many of its spiritual and metaphysical concepts and terminology. Theosophys stance therefore seems to be that because of science, explanations of the world by religion are insufficient and vice versa hence the intent to reconcile the two, and to reconcile religions with each other. The Society declares that its concepts are not dogmas, nor are Theosophical books to be considered as revelation or final authority, but simply as guides. The driving force of the ethos seems to be the spirit of questioning. As Blavatsky proclaims in the SD, Occult sciences claim less and give more, at all events, than either Darwinian Anthropology or Biblical Theology (1888, 2: 9). According to Schloezer, Scriabin first encountered Theosophy in 1906, after a friend told him that his plan for the Mysterium (then roughly four years old in Scriabins conscious mind) had much in common with it. Unquestionably, [Scriabin] was influenced by theosophy, but only insofar as the theosophical doctrine helped
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him to clarify his own ideas and facilitate the realization of what he regarded as the most important work in his life (Schloezer 1987, 178). Scriabin once said that Mme. Blavatsky was the only great theosophist and that her followers contributed little to her doctrine (Schloezer 1987, 68). Thus while he accepted or rejected various parts of the doctrine to suit his purposes, his admiration for Blavatsky is clear. Read it . . . I refuse to discuss the subject until you have read, even if superficially, the first volume of The Secret Doctrine of Mme. Blavatsky (Schloezer 1987, 67), Scriabin once said to Schloezer. One of the challenges in assessing the degree of Theosophys influence on Scriabin is determining in areas of agreement whether he was influenced by an idea or whether he had discovered it on his own. Even more revealing about Scriabin are the points of Theosophy he rejected in favor of his own views. As will be revealed, had Scriabin accepted all the tenets of the Theosophical doctrine especially certain aspects of its concept of time his plans would have been seriously compromised. Theosophy does share with all world religions a very important theme that of the return of all things to the divine source. Eastern religions tend to provide more detail regarding the colossal time-periods preceding that return than, for example, Christianity, which generally calls it soon. Regardless, religions seem to agree that our eventual union with the divine is inevitable and beyond any human control. This is where Scriabin steps in. The explication of the Mysterium will show that from his beliefs regarding the power of art, the nature of ecstasy and the non-reality of time and perhaps a touch of denial Scriabin theorized his own elegant solution.

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V. Ancient Mystery Religions & Mythology

For it appears to me that among the many exceptional and divine things your Athens has produced and contributed to human life, nothing is better than those mysteries. For by means of them we have been transformed from a rough and savage way of life to the state of humanity, and have been civilized. Just as they are called initiations, so in actual fact we have learned from them the fundamentals of life, and have grasped the basis not only for living with joy but also for dying with a better hope. - Marcus, in Cicero, On the Laws (De legibus), 2.14.36, with reference to the Eleusinian mysteries Is it possible the spells of Apocrypha should juggle men into such strange Mysteries? - Shakespeare . . . originators of mischief, parents of godless legends and deadly daimon-worship, seeing that they implanted the mysteries in human life to be a seed of evil and corruption. - Clement of Alexandria, from Exhortation to the Greeks, 2.11, on the men who brought about the Mysteries Scriabins passion for the Mysterium concept and his belief in its plausibility were galvanized by his discovery of Theosophy and, subsequently, his cursory studies of ancient Mystery religions. Both occurred after he conceived of the Mysterium. Hence with the ancient Mysteries, as with Theosophy, the challenge is again to discern in Scriabins ideas the appropriations from the coincidental influences that connected the Mysteries to the Mysterium. Perhaps contrary to expectation, the connections of the Mysterium to the Mysteries are outnumbered by those to Theosophy. There are also occasional interesting meeting points between Theosophy and the ancient Mysteries, many of which in turn point back to Scriabin. The ancient Mystery religions are intimately connected with mythology, and treated mythology as reality. Initiations into the Mysteries thus involved
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incantations and prayers to, and sometimes symbolic or theatrical portrayals of, figures from mythology. For the most part, the Mysteries are called Mysteries for good reason for close to two thousand years, most of what happened in the ceremonies has been kept secret. As such the information that is available comes from interpretations of surviving pieces of art in the language of symbols; with the portrayals of deities (who to us are now myths) and their own symbolism; from written accounts of initiates some of whom later withdrew their support of the Mysteries; and from a few miraculously surviving passages of written liturgy. There were as many religions and types of Mysteries in the region of ancient Greece and Rome as there are major religions in todays world. The majority of them are well-described in the sourcebooks, Mystery Religions in the Ancient World by Joscelyn Godwin, and The Ancient Mysteries by Marvin W. Meyer. To gain an impression of their nature it is only necessary to examine a few, but here is provided a partial list of them, generally named for geographic location or the deities honored: Eleusinian, Mithraic, Dionysian, Orphic, Andanian, Anatolian, Egyptian, Sabazian, and even Judaic and Gnostic Christian. For present purposes, the more detailed examination will focus primarily on the first three listed. In short, according to Godwin, the Mysteries offered a path to divine knowledge (recall the origin of the word theosophy). According to the Theosophical Society, in the seventh stage of initiation in the Mysteries, . . . the candidate becomes a selfless channel for communion with his inner god; the third and last stage of spiritual development. This state is defined as theopathy, from the Greek word theos (god) and pathos (experience, feeling). Several notable figures from history are said to have been initiates in the Mysteries. Blavatsky names some of the Fathers of the Church as having been initiates (though does not say in which Mysteries), including Clemens Alexandrinus (1888, xliv), or, Clement of Alexandria, a portion of whose denouncement of the Mysteries was featured in the epigraph of this section. Godwin cites as Orphic initiates the philosopher priest Plutarch and, some say, Saul of Tarsus (1981, 144), who in the Bible became Paul. Initiates in the Eleusinian Mysteries, according to Wasson, include the Greek playwright Sophocles and the Roman Emperor Augustus; Joseph Campbell, in the documentary Mythos, claims Socrates as well. Within the Eleusinian Mysteries which honored the goddess Demeter were Greater and Lesser Mysteries. As Godwin describes, the Lesser Mysteries, conducted in groups, were to impart information about the higher worlds; the Greater Mysteries, conducted individually, were intended to cause direct contact with the beings who inhabit the higher worlds . Both were reputed to be lifechanging experiences. In The Road to Eleusis Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries, R. Gordon Wasson describes the Eleusinian Mysteries thus:

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The initiates lived through the night in the telesterion of Eleusis, . . . and they would come away all wonderstruck by what they had lived through: according to some, they were never the same as before. (Wasson 1978, Foreword) The Greater Mysteries were intended to take the candidate through the gates of death (Godwin 1981, 34). Godwin further describes them: [The philosopher priest] Plutarch [ca. 45-125 A.D.] said that when death comes it is like initiation into the Greater Mysteries. . . . As in shamanic, Masonic, and other later initiations, the candidate was placed in a trance, his consciousness taken out of his body, and in this state he experienced higher states of being and met some of the denizens of the invisible worlds. Some were demonic, others beneficent; . . . (Godwin 1981, 35) Wasson echoes this sentiment: Rebirth from death was the secret of Eleusis (1978, 44). Meyers sourcebook The Ancient Mysteries provides startling information about the Roman Mithraic Mysteries in celebration of Mithras, a Persian god. In the Mithras Liturgy, the final encounter with the highest god will produce divine revelation, culminating in an experience of immortalization. Interestingly, passages from Homers Iliad are quoted in the final spells. Meyer calls the Liturgy one of the most interesting and perplexing of texts concerning the worship of Mithras in late antiquity (1987, 211-12). Several magical components appear in the Liturgy, including descriptions of breathing techniques, recipes, amulets, magical rites, and magical words of power. The magical words are at times onomatopoetic, symbolic, or involve speaking in tongues. Meyer cites onomatopoetic and symbolic examples: PPP popping like thunder, . . . [and] AEEIOYO, which uses the seven Greek vowels in a series. Some of the magic words are derived from foreign languages, such as Hebrew and Egyptian, and are manipulated for the sake of power through the use of permutations: IAO, the ineffable name of God in Hebrew, and its permutations OAI and AIO; and PSINOTHER, NOPSITHER and THERNOPSI, permutations of the phrase the son of God in Egyptian (Meyer 1987, 212). Provided from Meyers book is a section of the Mithras Liturgy, taken from the Great Magical Papyrus of Paris and translated by the author. Here the incantatory nature of the Mysteries is revealed, along with a ritualistic (if not frightening) sense of magic. In tone, the Liturgy is eerily similar to parts of Scriabins text for the Acte pralable, his lesser work to which the Mysterium material was transferred. Though whether Scriabin had access to texts such as these or was
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directly influenced by them is, of course, a mystery. This excerpt includes an introductory fragment and portions of the invocational verses: Be gracious to me, . . . as I write these mysteries handed down [not] for gain but for instruction; . . . so that I alone may ascend into heaven as an inquirer and behold the universe. This is the invocation of the ceremony: First origin of my origin, AEEIOYO, first beginning of my beginning, PPP SSS PHR[ ], spirit of spirit, the first of the spirit in me, MMM, fire given by god to my mixture of the mixtures in me, the first of the fire in me, EY EIA EE, water of water, the first of the water in me, OOO AAA EEE, earthy substance, the first of the earthy substance in me, YE YOE, my complete body I, NN whose mother is NN which was formed by a noble arm and an incorruptible right hand in a world without light and yet radiant, without soul and yet alive with soul, YEI AYI EYOIE: now if it be your will, METERTA PHOTH METHARTHA PHERIE, in another place IEREZATH, give me over to immortal birth and, following that, to my underlying nature, so that, after the present need which is pressing me exceedingly, I may gaze upon the immortal beginning with the immortal spirit, ANCHREPHRENESOYPHIRIGCH . . . Choosing a suitable stopping point is difficult, as the reader must wait fortynine lines for a period. Following the first round of verses, further instructions continue: . . . Draw in breath from the rays, drawing up three times as much as you can, and you will see yourself being lifted up and ascending to the height, so that you seem to be in midair. You will hear nothing either of man or of any other living thing, nor in that hour will you see anything of mortal affairs of earth, but rather you will see all immortal things. . . . Onomatopoetic sounds and magical words later become more prominent: Then make a long hissing sound, next make a popping sound, and say: PROPROPHEGGE MORIOS PROPHYR PROPHEGGE NEMETHIRE ARPSENTEN PITETMI MEOY ENARTH PHYRKECHO PSYRIDARIO TYRE PHILBA. (Meyer 1987, 213-15)

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The meaning of such passages are a mystery in todays world but serve as an interesting comparison with the ritualistic nature of Scriabins text for the Acte pralable and his approach to the Mysterium. In mythology, Dionysus, the god of wine, agriculture and theater, was devoured by the Titans as a child (through a convoluted series of events he was later re-born from Zeus thigh). Zeus, in retaliation, then destroyed the Titans and from their ashes made mankind. In Dionysian cults, the view held that since Dionysus was a divine being and mankind made from the ashes of the Titans who had consumed Dionysus a divine spark inhabited the bodies of all people. As Godwin reveals, this divine spark could be realized and released through Dionysian or (Bacchic) Mysteries. Godwin also phrases the purpose another way, namely to awaken the third eye,and to make man aware of the great mind of which his intellect is a part (1981, 133). In Theosophy, this phenomenon is described as the fundamental identity of all Souls with the Universal OverSoul, the latter being itself an aspect of the Unknown Root . . . (Blavatsky 1888, 17). As Godwin, Meyer, Blavatsky and mythology affirm, another and more unusual manifestation of Dionysus nature and that of his followers was the practice of omophagia, the consumption of raw animal flesh. Along with their belief in mankinds divine spark, Dionysian cults were also notorious for occasionally going into mad frenzies and tearing apart and consuming whatever animals they encountered. On occasion this practice extended to unfortunate people who had done them wrong or doubted their religion. This might be interpreted as a form of sacrament owing to Dionysus own early childhood misfortune. While the followers of Orpheus also laid claim to the god Dionysus, the nature of the two religions and Orpheus and Dionysus themselves bear little apparent resemblance. Godwin states that Orpheus was a reformer of and within the cult of Dionysus. Like Christ in Judaism and Buddha in Hinduism, he was rejected by followers of the old faith but succeeded in founding a new one alongside it (Godwin 1981, 144). Orphism shares with Dionysianism the goal of release from earthly conditions through the immortal soul, the divine spark, but the Orphics pursued it in a more controlled and intellectual way. Godwin contrasts the Orphic and Dionysian schools further, stating that the teachings of Orphism were perfectly at one with early Christian ethics, and the figure of Orpheus was borrowed in Christian iconography for representations of David and even of Christ himself (1981, 145). It is also interesting that Orpheus was assassinated by the Bacchantes women maddened by Dionysus who, in good Dionysian form, tore him apart. Perhaps this is among the reasons that for the Orphics, the practice of omophagia became the original transgression, and they recounted the myth of Dionysus in order to show the enormity of the sin (Meyer 1987, 64).
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In mythology, Orpheus was the son of Apollo (the god of, among many things, music) and like his father, played the lyre. With his lyre and voice, and his divine heredity, he was able to charm animals and plants, and even the beings of the Underworld. M.L. West, in The Orphic Hymns, adds, rivers stayed in their courses, even the rocks and trees came sidling down the mountain (1983, 4). His musical talent was so divinely powerful that he outsang the Sirens to save the Argonauts from them. And when he was torn apart and decapitated by the Bacchantes, his head kept singing. Hence it may come as no surprise that Schloezer declares the myth of Orpheus to have been Scriabins favorite legend, and that he believed an artist to be an unconscious magus. To Scriabin, the magic Orphic power of art was real and he was its rescuer Indeed, he regarded himself as an Orpheus, wielding power through his art over both the psychic and physical worlds. It was thanks to this selfidentification with Orpheus that Scriabin was able to form the idea of the Mysterium. (Schloezer 1987, 235) In the last centuries B.C., the Orphics established a literary canon the Orphic Hymns. What may have been particularly interesting if not influential to Scriabin was that many of the hymns, before the body of the text, designate a specific type of incense: 30. TO DIONYSOS, incensestorax . . . 37. TO THE TITANS, incensefrankincense . . . 48. TO SABAZIOS, incensearomatic herbs . . . (Meyer 1987, 105-8). The Mysterium, a harmony of sounds, of colors, of fragrances, was to include pillars of incense in its polyphonic score. While the purpose of the ancient Mysteries seems closely akin to that of the Mysterium, Schloezer declares that when the idea first took shape in Scriabins mind, his knowledge of the ancient mysteries was practically nil. He apparently took no interest at all in the Greek theater or medieval mystery plays. Much later in his creative work, he began to search for connections between his work and antiquity. What he learned of the ancient Mysteries confirmed in his mind his role as magus, even as priest in a ceremony. From the similarities he discovered some of which Schloezer says were imagined, likely owing to the limited knowledge even today of the Mysteries content he sensed that his plan embodied ancient traditions. He also perceived the uniqueness of his approach, believing he had discovered things that historians had missed. In Scriabins imagination his Mysterium had completely different connotations, and his role would enable him to transmit the magic message presaged by the participants in the ancient mysteries. . . . to revive the forgotten achievements of the ancient mystagogues [those who conducted the Mysteries]

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(Schloezer 1987, 180/90). But there were also attributes of the ancient Mysteries he rejected. The theatrical nature into which the Mysteries evolved was distasteful to Scriabin as Schloezer says, to him this evolution carried the taint of decadence. As Scriabin believed firmly in the religious nature of art, the loss of the religious and liturgical character of the Mysteries in his view placed the Mysterium in its own unique category. According to Schloezer, the Christian community of Scriabins world had a negative attitude, even hostility toward the theater and Scriabin felt the attitude was justified. He saw the theater as a parody of life, a symptom of the deepest spiritual degradation. This view resurfaces regarding the opera that Scriabin began to write, abandoned in favor of the Mysterium, which would consummate in reality what the opera was merely intended to portray. Scriabin also found himself at odds with some of the purification rites for initiation in the Mysteries. Some Mysteries, for example, decreed abstinence from meat, wine and sex for ten days prior to initiation (Godwin 1981, 19) acceptable to Scriabin. For other Mysteries however like the Dionysian orgies meat, wine and sex were integral. The research of Wasson, Hofmann and Ruck as well as Godwin and Meyer reveals that other substances than wine were often involved. While the Eleusinian Mysteries included bathing in the sea for purification again, likely acceptable to Scriabin they also implemented various types of hallucinogens. Albert Hofmann provides compelling research to the effect that the Mystery initiates at Eleusis had derived hallucinogens from ergot, a parasite found on wheat (Wasson, Hofmann and Ruck 1978, 34). Bowers and Godwin both mention the role of hallucinogenic mushrooms in the Mysteries, again including the Eleusinian. While Scriabin is said to have enjoyed wine in his younger days though accounts differ as to how much Bowers states that to him such poisons sacres (substances to induce visions) . . . were coarse means and ways to reproduce spiritual realities (1973, 107). To Scriabin, art was sufficient.

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VI. The Sorcerer

Scriabins passionately religious view of art and its profound effect on the psyche is clear. It is therefore important to examine the profound external effects he also believed art could produce. Leonid Sabaneyev, another Scriabin biographer who knew the composer personally, provides his own account of Scriabins view of the Orphic power of art. It is important to note that Schloezers memory of Scriabins views differs from Sabaneyev on every point (Schloezer 1987, 236), and that Bowers cites Soviet critic Lev Danilevich as dismissing Sabaneyev as pernicious and absurd (1973, 11). Marina Scriabine (as she spells it) and Bowers both claim that Sabaneyevs writings paint an unfortunate, inaccurate picture, focusing on what he saw as Scriabins egomania, madness, and Satanism. Regardless, Sabaneyev does give an interesting account of Scriabins idea of the power of art, with its debt to the legend of Orpheus and Scriabins resultant view of the artist as magus. If this account had no value, Schloezer would likely not have provided it in his own book. However Schloezer does say it is the only detailed account on Scriabins belief in the magical power of art his journals and poetry tend to be more concerned with the cosmos, humankind, unity, and the nature of ecstasy. Art is a sorcerer, possessing a magical power over the human mind, acting by means of a mysterious, incantatory, rhythmic force manifested in it and transmitted directly from the substance of the creators will. This rhythmic force enhances immeasurably the magical power of art. Just as regular beats, however weak, can set in motion a huge bell; just as the periodic vibrations of a sounding body are capable of destroying solid objects by a steadily increasing amplitude, so psychic vibrations, set in motion by an interplay of sounds, lights, and other sensory impressions, can be reinforced so enormously as to precipitate a veritable psychic storm. The power of art is immense in this respect. The impact of art on the psyche may be of a purely aesthetic nature, but it may be powerful enough to induce a catharsis, inner illumination, and purification; in its most extreme manifestations it will generate a state of artistic ecstasy. Just as there are two types of magic, white and black, so the magic power of art may be psychically benign or malignant. If it results in an inner illumination, the effect of such an art becomes theurgic. Once we accept the principle of effective action on the psychic plane, each performance of a work of art becomes an act of magic, a sacrament. Both the creator of a work
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of art and its performer become magicians, or votaries, who stir psychological storms and cast spells upon the souls of men. Such a theurgic art, leading toward a catharsis and an ecstasy, may become either a liturgical act or an act of Satanism, according to the direction taken by its effective action. (Schloezer 1987, 237) In Schloezers view this account speaks almost entirely of arts ability to affect the psyche, and not enough on the external effects it can produce. By way of reminder he poses the question, if Scriabin attributed to art only a psychological power, . . . why was he fascinated by the myth of Orpheus, who enchanted trees and stones by his playing (Schloezer 1987, 238)? He points out that when Sabaneyev refers to the destruction of solid objects by rhythmic vibrations, he is not referring to the totality of art and thus the account only applies to music. The aspect of Satanism is also distasteful to Schloezer, who reminds us of the inherent divinity of art according to Scriabin, and Scriabins belief that an image of divinity cannot be a negative influence in the world. It is therefore impossible to imagine that Scriabin could describe any art as an act of satanism, for in Scriabins belief a work of art is inherently incapable of serving the forces of darkness (Schloezer 1987, 239). Scriabins belief in the profound metaphysical effects of art, with Schloezers many eloquent descriptions, becomes challenging to summarize. Without doubt, the physics of vibration do play a role in Scriabins approach perhaps the only other factor that needs mention before describing the program of the Mysterium. Scriabins belief in the astral world and of the inherent oneness of all things, along with the vibratory nature of all objects, are synthesized effectively by Schloezers label of the collective soul. Schloezer describes the vibratory effects of a sound source, which he also calls a sounding body, on its surrounding environment: According to Scriabin, this sounding body influences not only the physical environment, but also the astral and mental planes of being, thus acting invisibly upon invisible objects, producing perturbations of matter in all its states. . . . If a performance . . . can pierce the bodies of the listeners with specific vibrations, invisibly introducing perturbations into both animate and inanimate matter, . . . then this performance generates in the concert hall a collective soul, which embraces in an orderly action all individual psyches, including that of the generator himself. (Schloezer 1987, 242-5) Thus Scriabin intended to cause profound (and permanent) effects on matter through the vehicle of the soul humankinds true state of being. Though he had some deep sense of its impossible scope, his beliefs nevertheless pointed him steadily, even logically, in the direction of the Mysterium.
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VII. Mysterium
There will not be a single spectator. All will be participants. The work requires special people, special artists and a completely new culture. The cast of performers includes an orchestra, a large mixed choir, an instrument with visual effects, dancers, a procession, incense, and rhythmic textural articulation. The cathedral in which it will take place will not be of one single type of stone but will continually change with the atmosphere and motion of the Mysterium. This will be done with the aid of mists and lights, which will modify the architectural contours. ... You will live in this music, with all sensations, harmony of sounds, of colors, of fragrances. A. Scriabin The word mystery, translated into Latin, Swedish or Dutch, becomes mysterium. Dictionary definitions of mystery all relate to secrecy, whether referring to Who-Dun-It? mystery stories like Agatha Christies, general unexplained phenomena, things unknowable but by divine revelation, or mysteries related to religious rites, be they ancient religions or the Eucharist of Christianity. Its roots are the Latin form mysterium or mystrium, and the Greek mysterion or mustrion, which mean secret rite. Certainly by reaching into antiquity for its roots, Scriabin sought the ritualistic meaning of the word though, with his plan for the Mysterium to include all of humanity, the element of secrecy was abolished. Around 1902, Scriabin had conceived of an opera and begun work on it; it was abandoned in favor of the more ambitious and far-reaching Mysterium. The opera would have been his only example of a dramatic work in the traditional sense. As Schloezer has firmly established Scriabins lack of affinity for the theater, this likely inspired his move to the grander work. While the opera was to be a dramatic portrayal of ecstasy, of individual death and spiritual transfiguration, . . . the Mysterium was to be the actual realization and consummation of this ecstasy, the collapse and transfiguration of the entire cosmos, including all humanity [my emphasis] (Schloezer 1987, 181). Scriabin firmly believed in this outcome, making the Mysterium what Schloezer calls a transference to another plane of art, utterly without precedent. Many sources briefly mention, in various phrasings, Scriabins plan for an allart drama to unite humankind in ecstasy and end the world. Robert Bird describes it
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as a synthetic musical, visual, and dramatic event that, over the course of several days, would culminate in the annihiliation of all matter (2006, 111). Kevin Dann calls it a dream of the unification of all humanity in a single moment of ecstatic revelation. . . . intended . . . to engage, along with vision and hearing, all the inferior sensestouch, taste, and smell (1998, 76). Alfred Swan, paraphrasing Scriabin and Sabaneyev, calls it the concluding act of the life of our race, a final manifestation of its vitality, a colossal mystical cataclysm separating our perishing race from a new-born race (attention was drawn to a similar extinction of races previous to ours). (Swan 1969, 77) In Bowers words, Scriabin thought it would be so potent in effect that the world would be destroyed in its final festival, not just changed as by Revolution(1973, 72). Cretien van Campen says Scriabin envisioned new modes of expression for the arts that would address unknown psychological abilities of the beholders (2008, 53). No English sources, however, provide significant detail as to how the goal was to be achieved or what exactly would happen in the performance other than the account of Boris de Schloezer. Not only does Schloezer provide ample detail about the plan for the Mysterium from private conversations with its creator, his insight is also validated by Scriabins oldest daughter. Marina Scriabine (as she spells it), in the introduction to Schloezers book, says that Scriabins thoughts were often misinterpreted by many who have written about him particularly Leonid Sabaneyev. In support of Schloezer, she writes: Boris de Schloezer is in all probability the only person among Scriabins close associates who was capable of reporting Scriabins ideas about art in the their integrity and unity and of clarifying the concept of the ultimate act that was to culminate in an ecstatic union with the supernal Unique Being. Besides having an intimate understanding of Scriabin, Schloezer was his brother-in-law and often stayed with the Scriabins . . . This intimacy enabled him to adequately evaluate the thoughts and the creative processes of [Scriabin]. Schloezer never accentutated the more extreme utterances of Scriabin induced by the heat of a passionate debate; rather, he analyzed Scriabins spiritual experiences, especially difficult to make explicit, through phases of logical development; he was always careful not to lose hold on the guiding line and get lost in digressions. He clarified obscure points and, thanks to his philosophical skill, was able to arrive at a synthesis and convert into lucid

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concepts, typical of his own intellect, the ideas, images, and intuitions of the artist, visionary, and mystic that was Scriabin. (Scriabine 1987, 2-3) Thus this section is based firmly on the account of Boris de Schloezer. As Scriabin approached the Mysterium, it grew in size and scope. In 1902 he is said to have hoped to finish the work in four to five years; and in 1907, he said it would take five to ten years more (Schloezer 1987, 178). The performers were to number around 2,000, with no spectators or audience all present were to participate. In fact, presence was not even a requisite for participation. Another of Scriabins journals, cited by Schloezer, contains a passage that, more than any others, portends his plan: . . . The highest synthesis is revealed in man and human society; its goal is the preservation of life and the furtherance of individual progress. But there is a higher synthesis that is of a divine nature, and which at the supreme moment of existence is bound to engulf the entire universe and impart to it a harmonious flowering, that is, ecstasy, returning it to the primordial state of repose that is nonbeing. Such a synthesis can be consummated only by human consciousness, elevated to a superior consciousness of the world, freeing the spirit from the chains of the past and carrying all living souls away in its divine creative flight. This will be the last ecstasy, but it is already close at hand. (Schloezer 1987, 120) Schloezer tells us in more metaphysical, Theosophical terms, the purpose of the Mysterium: It was to experience ecstasy in human consciousness and death in time and space. Ecstasy and death were for Scriabin the two aspects, internal and external, of Manvantara, the return of mankind and nature to God, followed by the absorption of time and space in the Deity. (Schloezer 1987, 219) Schloezer specifies two fundamental ideas that animate the Mysteriums design the synthesis of all arts and the inclusion in the sphere of art of elements outside the field of aesthetics (1987, 251). In terms of artistic synthesis, several individual arts were to be treated as if they were contrapuntal voices in a polyphonic score. The contrapuntal voices themselves were designated poetry, music, painting, sculpture and choreography. Scriabin also denied the efficacy in this situation of a Wagnerian approach, composing each part separately, adding one at a time. All parts were to be simultaneously composed and coordinated.

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Elements outside of traditional aesthetics especially unique in the scheme were the sensations of taste, touch and smell. Schloezer states that this doomed his design to failure, because sensations of touch, taste and smell differ fundamentally from auditory and visual sensations. They cannot be organized, graded, arranged, or otherwise systematized (Schloezer 1987, 255). Interestingly, he attributes this to an accident the failure of the senses of taste, touch and smell to give rise to individual arts in the process of evolution, as auditory and visual senses gave rise to music and poetry, to painting and sculpture. This generates speculation on the nature of potential arts aimed at the three inferior senses, as yet artistically untapped unless the culinary arts or the art of massage can be counted. Besides, Scriabin did not allow such problems to hinder his determination. Through an intuitive understanding, he lent support to the psychological theory that deduces all the senses from a primordial, undifferentiated vital sense, which was neither visual, tactile, nor auditory, and had subdivided into specific senses in the process of evolution. (Schloezer 1987, 256) Scriabin attached special significance to olfactory sensations and their ability to form numerous intense, complex, and suggestive psychological associations. With an obvious eroticism he referred to the sensations of touch as caresses. The introduction of tactile sensations into the score was intended to transform the entire human body into a sounding instrument [my emphasis] (Schloezer 1987, 84). Schloezer generalizes that impressions made upon the inferior sensory organs are apt to perturb the psyche far more than musical sounds, words, or colors. They are also capable, when utilized prudently and cautiously and combined with sounds, gestures, or coloration, of deepening, widening, and reinforcing the tonus of the psyche by increasing and exciting its energies. (Schloezer 1987, 258) For the text and speaking parts of the Mysterium Scriabin was not content with any of the worlds modern languages each expresses the spirit of its nation of origin and carries with it historical connotations. Scriabin eagerly sought a truly universal language, and experimented with learning Sanskrit at one point, which, according to popular opinion, was the primordial Aryan language (Schloezer 1987, 259). (The term Aryan here is used in its obsolete meaning referring to ancient Indo-European and Indo-Iranian peoples). He apparently gave it up, deciding it would take too much time and that it was too highly developed - thus not universal enough. Near the end of his life Scriabin said,
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I may have to create my own language for my works and to immerse myself in the spirit of music and dance. Modern speech is too inflexible, too firmly fixed; it is imperative to restore to the spoken word its original lightness, to make it more fluid, more pliant, to reinforce its songful quality. Sanskrit may be an intermediate stage, but we must delve more deeply for the roots of speech. (Schloezer 1987, 259) The subject of the Mysterium was to be world history from the cosmogenic and anthropogenic standpoint [my emphasis], evolution regarded not as a series of external events, but a gradual materialization of the Spirit its immersion in matter (Schloezer 1987, 263). Recall the subtitles of Blavatskys two volumes of The Secret Doctrine. Owing to Scriabins identification of the individual with the divine, the history of the universe must be at the same time a history of the individual psyche. Thus psychology and cosmology become one cosmogenesis and anthropogenesis are identical. The Mysterium unfolds before us the evolution of the cosmos, mankind, and the individual; all three traverse the trajectory from incoherent homogeneity to specific multiplicity, returning to pristine unity (Schloezer 1987, 263). Again parallel with Blavatsky and the number of human races according to The Secret Doctrine, the Mysterium was to consist of seven parts, each lasting an entire day. Thus the entire production was to last seven days, or multiples thereof. The production was to be preceded by a series of preliminary acts corresponding to the ancient purification rites; Scriabin would likely have been rather selective of the rites to enforce his own standards for purification. These acts were to include extensive training of the participants in terms of physique, morals, aesthetics, religion and philosophy. Participants would also contribute to landscaping the area and constructing a temple specifically for the production (Schloezer 1987, 263). Further, the participants were to identify themselves with special states of being corresponding to the seven human races of the theosophic doctrine (Schloezer 1987, 265) for example the third race, the Lemurians, according to theosophy, were to be represented by the third day, and the fourth race, the Atlanteans, by the fourth day. No detail is provided regarding how these earlier races were to be portrayed an especially compelling question regarding the first two days, representing our completely astral ancestors. The fifth day corresponded to our modern race of humans. On the final two days of the production, [b]y the magical agency of art, humanity could pass through the stages of the sixth and the seventh races in the shortest possible time and be reincarnated successively. . . (Schloezer 1987, 266). The implied notion of time being flexible is foreshadowed in one of Scriabins journal entries from about 1906 just before he was introduced to theosophy: A
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moment of ecstasy will cease to be a moment in time, for it will compress time into itself (Schloezer 1987, 231). In the Theosophical doctrine the evolution of humanity through the sixth and seventh races would take thousands upon thousands of centuries, according to Schloezer. This was not an agreeable fit with Scriabins expectations for the Mysterium. From his belief in the ability of ecstasy to transcend time, Scriabin thus developed a theory postulating the possibility and even the inevitability of a tremendous acceleration of the involutionary process in its last stages (Schloezer 1987, 216). (Involution is used here in its Theosophical meaning of infolding, or, essentially, the reverse of evolution). By compressing time, Scriabins event would cause humanity to evolve through the sixth and seventh races in nearly an instant. This illustrates what is perhaps Scriabins most significant point of departure from the tenets of Theosophy. While involution and evolution traverse the same path, involution would occur at an infinitely faster pace. Evolution causes time to expand, while involution would cause it to contract and then vanish completely in the moment of ecstasy. In his view then, it is possible to live a million years in one second [my emphasis] (Schloezer 1987, 216). He believed that the Mysterium would bring about not only the end of the fifth race of humankind, but by accelerating time bring about the end of the entire Manvantara. The power of art to Scriabin is clear as is somewhat the power of his own ideas. Even the cyclic, infinite nature of the oscillating universe ideas from Theosophy and Hinduism he may have previously embraced could be transcended, the Mysterium thus a truly final ecstasy. Scriabin believed the nature of art would allow the Mysterium to overpower laws to which the universe seemed to adhere. Originally the location of the temple was to be India, either in the mountains of the north, popularly believed to be the cradle of humanity, or in the tropical south. Eventually he abandoned the notion of a specific geographical location and was satisfied with the general indication of tropical surroundings. Structurally Scriabin planned for the temple to be a gigantic circular structure topped by a high cupola. He had even made some drawings of the architectural design, which consisted of a hemisphere surrounded by water creating, by reflection, the visual impression of a complete sphere, symbolic of the globe. Around the temple were to be terraced gardens, and the landscaping itself was to be part of the score of the Mysterium with the workers and builders to become participants in the production (Schloezer 1987, 264). One of Scriabins most ambitious projects was the artistic fashioning of nature itself . . . (Schloezer 1987, 264). Such features as the daily changes of light and dark, forest noises and scents, birdsong, and planetary motion in the night sky were to be incorporated into the symphony of colors, shapes, and odors. The incorporation of planetary motion into the score implies the possible need for a
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certain planetary alignment, limiting the Mysteriums occurrence to a specific time in history. Alternatively, it is possible that Scriabin intended the Mysterium itself to actually influence the positions of the planets. However neither Scriabin nor Schloezer seem to have addressed this point in further detail. Equally ambitious and difficult to fathom was Scriabins inclusion of constantly varying architecture. He found the inertia and immobility of even the most beautiful buildings oppressive. The set of the Mysterium was to be an architectural dance, and Scriabin envisioned luminous mirages of buildings produced by special projectors. He also imagined fragrant curtains of haze, with pillars of incense rising to the sky, and transparent surfaces made visible by beams of light directed toward them at an angle. Above all, he wanted everything to move, to overcome gravity, so that not a single stone would disrupt by its inertness the universal joy making the whole world dance. (Schloezer 1987, 265) Apparently carried away by imagination he once stated: It may be necessary, at the last moment, to destroy the temple itself, to demolish its walls in order to emerge into open air, under the skies (Schloezer 1987, 265). I recall that Scriabin spoke of the entire population of the world participating in the Mysterium (Schloezer 1987, 262). There were to be no actors or performers in the traditional sense and no passive spectators. This is another unique feature of the Mysterium, one which further elevates the concept beyond the realm of traditional art the elimination of the stage, the removal of all barriers between (and thus the identities of) cast and audience. The footlights at the edge of the stage, to Scriabin, were symbolic of a duality that he intended to abolish. The audience would participate. All who were present were to be part of, and react to, the performances to thus be objects of their own action. The participants in the Mysterium were not to be actors, but rather votaries in the sacrament of theophany, a liturgical act in which their flesh and souls would undergo the miracle of transubstantiation (Schloezer 1987, 267). Further, the metamorphosis was not only for the immediate participants, but for all who were aware of the event, even if they were not physically present. The effect of the Mysterium, though it would take place at a certain point in time and space, would embrace the entire universe, and millions of people would spiritually participate, even if physically they happened to be far away (Schloezer 1987, 267-8). It is not firmly established, by either Scriabin or Schloezer, whether the participants not physically present were required to be aware of the event. It also seems that were the Mysterium to succeed completely, awareness would be irrelevant and participation would cease to be a choice.
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Scriabin compared humankind with the human body the organs of the body have their specific functions while also contributing to the life of the whole being. In parallel, and in spiritual terms, each human would function as an organ of the whole body, i.e., humankind. Enlarging on this simile, Scriabin told [Schloezer], during one of [their] last conversations, that his temple was to be a grandiose altar, the focal point of the act, a sacrificial place. The true temple was to be the earth itself [my emphasis] (Schloezer 1987, 268). Though around the time of the composition of his opera Scriabin had placed himself in a central role for the event, by 1907 his views had changed significantly. He began to realize that he could not reach his goal alone. I need support, he lamented, I cannot do all my work alone. It is imperative that people realize the universal importance of the Mysterium. Its success is vital to all humanity, not just for my personal gratification (Schloezer 1987, 269). He stated that the salvation and transfiguration of humankind needed to be a universal concern. Initially he envisioned himself as a kind of high priest officiating the ritual. Toward the end of his life, though, he ceased to dwell on his own role; only the act itself was important, and he was willing to be dissolved in it. As it would envelop the entire universe, so the Mysterium would also reach all beings of the past and future. By embodying the spirits of our remote ancestors, while compressing time to move humanitys evolution rapidly through future races, Scriabin would unite the ancient with the yet-to-be. Thus the Mysterium was to reach simultaneously forward and backward in time. When the Mysterium ended, in Scriabins words, its participants were to awaken in Heaven as free children of the Unique (Schloezer 1987, 261). Several references have been made to the Acte pralable, the approximation of the Mysterium to which Scriabin eventually transferred the Mysteriums material. Biographers generally attribute the shift to an innate sense that the Mysterium was an impossible vision to realize and not due to its scope alone. Alfred Swan says eloquently, . . . even Scriabin himself, intoxicated as he was by the idea, admitted that the world was not yet prepared to accept it (Swan 1969, 110). Schloezer continues, One of Scriabins intimates observed, very much to the point, that in Scriabins innermost consciousness, undertaking the Acte pralable signalized abandoning the project of the Mysterium (1987, 146). Thus the remnants of musical material intended for the Mysterium are to be found in the sketches for the Acte pralable. Some of the material survives in Scriabins late piano music; the Acte includes themes, according to Alexander Nemtin, from Scriabins Eighth Sonata Op. 66, Guirlandes from the Dances Op. 73 No. 1, and Nos. 2 and 4 of the Preludes Op. 74. Following are selected portions of the text of the Acte pralable, or, Prefatory Act, Scriabins simulacrum of the unfinished Mysterium. They are taken from
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Schloezers book and interspersed with some of his commentary regarding the action. Though the Mithras Liturgy lacks strict poetic meter and Scriabins text lacks spell-like repetition or magical words, there is a commonality of liturgical tone: Once again the Deathless One bestows A blessed gift of Love on you; Once more the Infinite One shows In the Finite his image true. [Schloezer: The world is born. Space and time are created. The chorus sings:] Eternity in a moments ardor dwells, Illuminating the depths of space; Infinitys breath gives life its grace, And silence is alive with sounds of bells. To Death is wed Eternal Father Our flaming hearts to gather. [The Father dies in the throes of creation. His voice is heard:] Children begotten by me, Offspring of loves turmoil! On me an assault I foresee; Your victory I shall not foil. I myself tore myself in twain When I spawned you from my hidden recesses, When I writhed in torment and pain Craving for creative caresses. You are destined to vanquish me now, It is my law and your fate; No retreat will I ever allow To those who come here too late. [The people respond:] We are children begotten by you. Obedient to paternal command, We sadly depart to pursue
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Our course toward a distant land. We shall gather magical flowers That bloom in the fields of our dreams. Heirs to your inexhaustible powers, We are floating in life-giving streams. We are carried swiftly away, Yet remaining under your sway, Rushing from eternity, From saintly paternity, In purposeful motion Toward the human ocean, Downward from light Into tenebrous night To imprint in fiery incarnation Your image of divine adoration, Of you alone On the dark stone. [Cosmic evolution unfolds. . . .] Schloezer describes the Acte pralable simultaneously as a hymn to abundant, radiant life, and to death. In death, life reaches its supreme fulfillment by sacrificing itself. In the hearts of the children who have forgotten their father, who dwell in the thrall of corruption, there sparkles a yearning for liberation (Schloezer 1987, 301). Inevitably there is a return for humanity from the state of matter to the state of spirit: [The Act concludes with a dance:] The dance is the prime cause, Rendering righteous judgment; it will fulfill your destiny By its imperious splendor. Our Father comes down to us In the quickening heartbeats Of our living dance. Death comes down to us, Sweetly dissolving the firmament Of our living dance. We are all embraced by love, We are all a single current
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Rushing to Eternity, Toward saintly Paternity, In purposeful motion Away from the human ocean, Upward toward light From tenebrous night. We imprinted in fiery incarnation Your image of divine adoration, Of you alone, On the dark stone. Flame up, sacred Temple From the fire of our hearts! Flame up in a sacred conflagration! Melt blissfully in us, O sweet Father! Melt with Death in ardent dance! (Schloezer 1987, 296-303) Fluency in Russian would undoubtedly be advantageous, as a reading in the original language may bear shades of meaning not possible with English. Though a brief excerpt, the general narrative serves to illustrate the incantatory, ceremonial nature of the Acte pralable, and vicariously the Mysterium. For further exploration, I recommend the recording of Vladimir Ashkenazy conducting the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin in Alexander Nemtins realization of Scriabins Acte, called Preparation for the Final Mystery. The three-disc set is based on fifty-three pages of musical sketches for the Acte pralable, as well as its complete, though unedited, text all left on Scriabins desk at his death. Work on the composition first commenced on November 8, 1970; it was finally released in 1999, the year of Nemtins own death. The Preparation is a compelling and fascinating piece however, whether it is truly in accordance with what Scriabin would have created will always remain, of course, a mystery.

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VIII. Synthesis
Though Scriabin was always foremost a musician, the extramusical ideas his music effectively synthesized make categorizing him, as biographers agree, no easy task. His enduring obscurity in the Western world is an interesting contrast to the celebration awarded him in Russia. It may be due to Western ignorance of Scriabins music arising from distaste for, and excess focus on, his philosophies. Perhaps it is his apparent arrogance or general eccentricity. As the philosophies he drew upon might be called eccentric, certainly the personal one he assembled from them was of a similar nature. The world today seems increasingly pre-occupied with the notion of the Apocalypse. The present writer is no exception. Apocalypticism was the original lure to this project. As is the nature of research, however, the path led to many unexpected places. Having learned enough to better understand Scriabins scheme, it became necessary to understand his inspiration; the origins of the idea. While the topic of discussion the Mysterium does not exist, the aim, in part, is to discover what it was despite the fact that it was not. Thus the search came to embody a quest for the source of an immanifest dream. The mere existence of a single figure in history who believed something radical to be possible gives weight to an idea. And history is filled with solitary, eccentric individuals who postulated extremist ideas which in his/her own lifetime were met with laughter. Scriabin wrote poetry about flying to the sun, scoffed at in his time. In 1961, forty-six years after his death, Scriabins Poem of Ecstasy was broadcast on Russian radio when Yuri Gagarin made the worlds first outer-space flight. Perhaps Scriabins ideas have more value than has thus far been estimated. The elements of spiritual ecstasy and genius, pervasive in Scriabins music, also point to the logic of examining him further. It is unlikely that one can be capable of truly understanding the mind of someone like Scriabin as with Beethoven, Da Vinci, or Einstein. But there is a persistent incongruity attached to him and his place in history. His philosophies, while prominent in his work, have likely received too much attention. Scriabins ideas, in word form, were always second to his music. In the end it is through his music that he should be evaluated though his entire personality does make for fascinating study. His brilliance in assimilating disparate ideas into his own world-view, finding parallels between them, and finally expressing them in music, should be reason enough to bring upturned noses back down. This broad assimilation is a primary source of the uniqueness of Scriabins sound.
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The popular misperception of the degree of his egotism yes, he was arrogant, like many brilliant people is ironically due to his obsession with uniting humanity. He had a deep unconscious knowledge of how much work it would take. That it was, in fact, impossible was a fact he refused to consciously accept. And it is our choice which aspect of that refusal we focus on denial . . . or love. Ivanov, Scriabins lifelong friend and post-mortem defender, provides an interesting, even salvational portrayal of Scriabins untimely death: as the realization of the Mysterium he had long sought, providing a new entrance into the world of immortality (Bird 2006, 191). Approaching the end of the research path, a final startling discovery occurred. A 2007 study by Emanuel E. Garcia, M.D., entitled Scriabins Mysterium and the Birth of Genius, proposes an unexpected, touching and compelling interpretation of Scriabins cosmic vision. Garcia suggests that we may reasonably contend, citing several key factors, that the Mysterium is the artistic projection of Scriabins quest for and reunion with his mother through passage into the fantasied intrauterine environment (Garcia 2007, 11). The notion is supported by several features of the Mysterium: 1) the element of transformation through death and rebirth; 2) the elimination of bounds between performer and spectator the union and merger of participants 3) stimulation of all the senses together the attribute of oneness 4) the omnipotence of thought Scriabin as, in a sense, the creator of the world 5) the orgiastic character cosmic cataclysm, union of Male and Female principles 6) the pervasive theme of Oneness elimination of conflict, gender, etc. the union of all peoples 7) the inescapable air of impossibility (Garcia 2007, 11) Scriabins conception of the Mysterium can be partially and I emphasize partially understood as the search for both his lost mother and his lost life within her (Garcia 2007, 12). The author posits that in the womb one finds the only utopia possible, a place where the five senses are united where all is oneness and one is omnipotent. Recall that Scriabin was raised by his aunt and grandmother, as his mother died when he was one year old. Sabaneev writes that Scriabin apparently did not remember his mother, but a large portrait of her always hung over his desk! (1966, p. 258) the desk where he fashioned his musical creations (Garcia 2007, 12). Her disappearance from Scriabins world must have been powerfully felt. She was a virtuoso pianist, from whom Scriabin inherited his own gifts as a pianist. He was virtually obsessed with the piano at a young age and even built toy pianos by hand.
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The absence of Scriabins pianist-mother, associated with the piano and music in general, could well have contributed to the sensuality and yearning of his music (Garcia 2007, 12). Garcia also cites scientific evidence (Arabin, 2002) that prenatal memories of music and speech are formed and have enduring post-natal effects. In the womb Scriabin was exposed to a tremendous amount of music his mother practiced diligently and performed regularly until five days before his birth. Thus it is highly plausible that Scriabin was later moved unconsciously to discover and recreate in music the stimuli of that unremembered environment (Garcia 2007, 12). There may be no way to understand Scriabins conscious or unconscious motivations, or what he truly believed for these to be a mystery would seem appropriate. His eccentricity, however, can nearly be declared fact, and has certainly contributed to his obscurity. History, and at least Western culture, seems to have ascribed to Scriabin a place on the periphery of art. This may in part result from the attempts of a musician to express on paper, in words, what for him was clearer expressed in abstract sounds. Scriabins position in music history is still more puzzling when one considers the number of properly honored artists who were themselves egocentric and brilliant, and some truly insane. But if we pay attention, as we should, not to the goals pursued by Scriabin, but to his accomplishments in pursuing these goals; if we consider not the titles of his works, but the works themselves; if we ignore what he said and wrote about them; if we disregard his own evaluation of their significance but turn to the works and listen to what they have to say to us; if we absorb the meaning that they possess in themselvesthen a true image of Scriabins art reveals itself, and all suspicions are dispelled. One could certainly remain aloof from this art or criticize it, but one must recognize that we are here confronted with an oeuvre which must be heard, understood, and judged on the same terms as any other production of pure music, whether it be Bach, Chopin, or Debussy. (Schloezer 1987, 316)

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The star is so beautiful, and I so love my star that if I cannot gaze on it, if it cannot shine down on me in my life, and if I cannot fly to it, then thought perishes, and with it everything else. Better that I disappear in mad flight toward her. So the idea will remain, and that will triumph. A. Scriabin

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