Chant

I was once a ritualistic chanter of Buddhist sutra. Like meditating, chanting a familiar sutra repeatedly has an hypnotic effect. Under the influence of this hypnotic effect, I believe, it is possible to engage various parts of the brain for the concerted behavioral changes which can better your life. This is not an outrageously novel or new idea.

This morning I am listening to Gregorian chant on my favorite Amsterdam radio station, Conzertzender. It occurs to me that this chanting is not very different from the Buddhist sutra-chanting with which I am familiar. In my youth, I sang Gregorian chant in a boys' choir. I recall the rush of excitement when our choir got it just right and the echoes of our voices rebounded back to us off the stark stone walls of our church.

The Gregorian chant of Roman Catholic ritual is constructed to lull and mystify, in my opinion. It is a sound meant to echo off cloister walls. A sound to awe and entrance impressionable, illiterate peasants perhaps. The great monasteries of Tibet, perched on mountaintops, echoed similarly with the sutras, often accompanied by fierce horn blasts and choking incense.

While listening to Gregorian chant charms me and makes me nostalgic for my own blissful ignorance of youth, I also hear in it the theatrical manipulation of millions for centuries. Perhaps this will be the role of religious rituals in some enlightened future. Reminders of the blissful ignorance of humanity, before it woke up to its real place in the Universe.