He said himself that his performances are public prayer “to bring celestial music to humans and human music to the celestial beings, so that Man may listen to GOD and GOD may hear His children.”

On December 31st 1997, Stockhausen designed his grave. The LIGHT Formula (the final super formula of WEDNESDAY transposed to the original pitches of the super formula) was to be shown on a circle with the last sung text in MICHAELION of WEDNESDAY from LIGHT.

WEDNESDAY from LIGHT closes with a sextet, which is sung surrounding the listeners and finally, resounding in all spaces: (Six vocalists stand surrounding the audience.)

Mankind, hear:
MICHAEL EVE are healing the World,

LUCIFER will be brought around through the music of LIGHT.
[: MI :]
(The vocalists rotate clockwise, holding the chord.)
Micha Luci Evaelferlu Micha
and all angels of Heaven praise GOD
with us, messengers from Michaelion!
Blessing brings praise.
Praise, gratitude for the miracles of the stars, planets.
All spirits turn in spirals towards the Light of the World,
eternally ascending to GOD, creating in the All.
Listen to the sound of the galaxies, magical music,
music of rotating tones, rushing noises, spectra.
[: CHA :]
(rotation)
Rejoice jubilate children,
rejoice, jubilate, rejoice jubilate,
for never has mankind known so much
about the heavenly bodies, starry firmament!
Be glad: WEDNESDAY from LIGHT in the Michaelion
engenders love hope courage
for Lucifer’s peace with GOD,
the creator of all universes, creatures.
[: EL :]
(rotation)
[: MICHAEL EVE LUCIFER :] (3x)
Music of the stars in the sky of the Almighty,
Dream of spheres in eternal galaxies,
Formulas of innumerable constellations,
Formulas for tones noises of LIGHT.
[: EVE forgive LUCIFER :]
LUCIFER, turn your spirit towards MICHAEL,
serve GOD’S law,
the fundamental of the All.
MI-HI-CHA-EL, GOD’S Son, Cosmo-Creator, Cosmic Prince:
lead us to GOD’S everlasting light.
WEDNESDAY from LIGHT is the day of consensus:
synchronous
cosmo-synchronous.
Hear, mankind: in our part
– voice of the Intuition –
it says to sing love forever
through solicitous formula music
in praise of GOD:
HU!

Licht (Light), subtitled “The Seven Days of the Week,” is a cycle of seven operas composed by Karlheinz Stockhausen which, in total, lasts over 29 hours.

The Licht opera project, originally titled Hikari (光 , Japanese for “light”), originated with a piece for dancers and Gagaku orchestra commissioned by the National Theater in Tokyo. Titled Jahreslauf (Course of the Years), this piece became the first act of Dienstag. Another important Japanese influence is from Noh theater, which the composer cites in connection with his conception of stage action (Stockhausen, Conen, and Hennlich 1989, 282). Though it has often been said Licht was inspired by The Urantia Book, only Donnerstag makes direct reference to it, in acts 1 and 3. The emblems of Michael and Lucifer in Licht are also derived from this book (Bandur 2004).

There are seven operas, each named for a day of the week, whose subject matter reflects attributes associated in traditional mythologies with each day. These attributes in turn rest on the seven planets of Antiquity (and their associated deities) from which the day-names are derived:
Monday = The Moon
Tuesday = Mars
Wednesday = Mercury
Thursday = Jupiter
Friday = Venus
Saturday = Saturn
Sunday = The Sun

another project that stoked me was the spherical concert hall

«Spherical Concert Hall» Osaka Spherical Concert Hall 1970
For the 1970 World Expo in Osaka in 1970, Germany built the world’s first, and so far only, spherical concert hall. It was based on artistic concepts by Karlheinz Stockhausen and an audio-technical concept from the Electronic Studio at the Technical University in Berlin. The audience sat on a sound-permeable grid just below the centre of the sphere, 50 groups of loudspeakers arranged all around reproduced, fully in three dimensions, electro-acoustic sound compositions that had been specially commissioned or adapted for this unique space. Works by composers including Bernd Alois Zimmermann and Boris Blacher were played from the multi-track tape, along with Bach and Beethoven. In the course of the 180-day exhibition, Stockhausen and a high-calibre, 19-strong ensemble gave live concerts for over a million visitors; «Spiral,» for a soloist and short-wave receiver was played over 1300 times, for example. It was possible to achieve the three-dimensional sound distribution live, using a spherical sensor built in Berlin to feed the 50 sound sources, but a ten-channel rotary mill constructed to Stockhausen’s design was deployed more frequently.
for bio and stockhausen info

Jan 29 2008: Albert Hofmann passed away at his home at 9am on Tuesday
Apr 29, 2008 of a heart attack at the age of 102. He will be missed.

Summary
Albert Hofmann was born in Baden, Switzerland in 1906. He graduated
from the University of Zürich with a degree in chemistry in 1929 and
went to work for Sandoz Pharmaceutical in Basel, Switzerland. With the
laboratory goal of working towards isolation of the active principles
of known medicinal plants, Hofmann worked with Mediterranean squill
(Scilla maritima) for several years, before moving on to the study of
Claviceps purpurea (ergot) and ergot alkaloids.

Over the next few years, he worked his way through the lysergic acid
derivatives, eventually synthesizing LSD-25 for the first time in
1938. After minimal testing, LSD-25 was set aside as he continued with
other derivatives. Four years later, on April 16, 1943, he
re-synthesized LSD-25 because he felt he might have missed something
the first time around. That day, he became the first human to
experience the effects of LSD after accidentally ingesting a minute
amount. Three days later, on April 19, 1943, he decided to verify his
results by intentionally ingesting 250 ug of LSD. This day has become
known as “Bicycle Day” as Hofmann experienced an incredible bicycle
ride on his way home from the lab.

In addition to his discovery of LSD, he was also the first to
synthesize psilocybin (the active constituent of ‘magic mushrooms’) in
1958. Albert Hofmann, known as the ‘father of LSD’, continued to work
at Sandoz until 1971 when he retired as Director of Research for the
Department of Natural Products. He continued to write, lecture, and
play a leading role as an elder in the psychedelic community until his
death at the age of 102.

Above: Life, May 13 1957.Courtesy The Stain Blue Museum Collection.Life magazine, as part of its “Great Adventures Series,” published in its May 13th 1957 issue (the one with actor Bert Lahr on the cover) an account of this event titled, “Seeking the Magic Mushroom.” This article, which inspired Dr. Timothy Leary and countless others to try the mushrooms, is considered by many to be the instrument that ushered in the “Psychedelic Revolution” of the 1960s.

Huautla de Jimenez, This remote village is nestled in the Sierra Madre Oriental

Huautla de Jimenez would later become inundated with hippies hoping to “trip” with Maria Sabina. John Lennon, Peter Townshend, Mick Jagger, and Bob Dylan are some of the celebrities who traveled to Huautla, seeking the spiritual guidance of Maria Sabina. Although the Life article made Maria famous, it also brought her great suffering. Sadly, her home would later be burned and she was banished to the outskirts of town as punishment for divulging the Indians’ age-old secret about their use of teonanacatl, or “God’s Flesh.” She never regretted having met Wasson, however, and felt that it was destiny.She passed away on November 22nd 1985, and is now a legend in Mexico.

Below: Mazatec dolls acquired in Huautla de Jimenez.The Mazatecs are world renowned for their brightly colored, hand-woven fabrics.Courtesy The Stain Blue Museum Collection.

Required Reading

Wasson, R.G. “Seeking the magic mushroom.” Life 42(19): 100 (1957).Wasson, R.G. “The hallucinogenic fungi of Mexico: An inquiry into the origins of the religious idea among primitive peoples.” Botanical Museum Leaflets Harvard University 19(7): 137-162 (1961).Wasson, R.G. “The hallucinogenic mushrooms of Mexico and psilocybin: A bibliography.” Botanical Museum Leaflets Harvard University 20(2): 25-73 (1962).Wasson, R.G. et al. Maria Sabina and Her Mazatec Mushroom Velada. Ethnomycological Studies No. 3. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York (1974).