True art brings people on a level of reality that, in our modern world, is often forgotten exists. There is more truth, harmony and intensity of feeling on this level. It puts common reality to shame. It is the Archangelic state of consciousness.
This level of reality, which is more real than common reality, has often been described by writers and scientists like Emanuel Swedenborg, Eleanor Merry, Goethe, Plato and others.(1) It takes much effort and strength of character to reach Archangelic states of being, especially in our modern world, that is why its existence is often denied, repressed and rejected.
So it is that true art does not let itself be “reviewed”. To review anything alive within the Archangelic reality is absurd. Of course, this happens all the time by those who do not recognize, understand or are unable to exist in this realm. They put a lasso around it and pull it down to their own pitiful level of reality before they start describing their so-called expert opinions in words that can only fall short.
In Copenhagen last Tuesday, Bob Dylan (1941) took his audience to this realm of “Truth and Good”, as Swedenborg described it in the eighteenth century. It was Dylan’s own event, no opening act, no merchandise sellers, no words to the audience, no return for a standing ovation. Just music.(2)
When he came on stage he was not yet the ‘master of his fate’ as he prefers it during his concerts, he took some time during the first two songs to connect himself to the external world, mostly because, in his own words from 2022:
“My problem is that I’m too relaxed, too laidback. Most of the time I feel like a flat tire; totally unmotivated, positively lifeless. I can fall asleep at any time during the day. It takes a lot to get me stimulated, and I’m an excessively sensitive person, which complicates things. I can be totally at ease one minute, and then, for no reason whatsoever, I get restless and fidgety; doesn’t seem to be any middle ground.“(3)
His microphone at the piano was positioned too high and that made Bob angry. He fidgeted with it for a while until he was the master of his mic. Then, during the second song, he took off to another reality and the intense harmony and emotion entered the bones of all the people and stayed there.
The entire concert Dylan and his four musicians did not fall below their Archangelic level, except almost, for about two minutes. Something external interfered and made the music move in a direction as if it was about to fall below the level. Dylan shook his head and connected with his musicians and redirected them back on high. Within two seconds, they were all back in the Realm.
To witness this backstopping, the redirecting of powers from generality back into the Realm, was wonderful to experience from up close. Whatever interferes, internally or externally, it can quickly be redirected back into Divinity.
The human soul has three functions, thinking, feeling and willing. In our age the feeling ability has become so weak that the necessary balance between the three is distorted and many people appear as if they are sick and broken. As Dylan described it in the same interview,
“The earth could vomit up its dead, and it could be raining blood, and we’d shrug it off, cool as cucumbers. Everything’s too easy. Just one stroke of the ring finger, middle finger, one little click, that’s all it takes, and we’re there. We’ve dropped the coin right into the slot. We’re pill poppers, cube heads and day trippers, hanging in, hanging out, gobbling blue devils, black mollies, anything we can get our hands on. Not to mention the nose candy and ganga grass. It’s all too easy, too democratic. You need a solar X-ray detector just to find somebody’s heart, see if they still have one.“
Dylan then took the audience into the song we need most today, Every Grain of Sand (1981), about God, seeing the Master’s Hand and every hair numbered like every grain of sand. The bright lights then went on again in Copenhagen and it was quiet in the Royal Arena. The music had gone and many people did not yet know what to say, and so thousands were still very quiet. Old people with walking sticks, disabled, Europeans who came from far, teenage boys with their fathers, everyone slowly moved toward the exit while trying their hardest to stay in Dylan’s Realm, where art and religion are one.
1) The Archangelic state is above the material and angelic spheres. In states below the Archangelic, out-of-place (negative) spirits can still hold sway. This is what we encounter in lower ‘art’: a peculiar mix of good and bad. Unfortunately, many unreliable sources exist on non-material realms. While Swedenborg is an inspiring source there is no source more reliable than developing one’s own latent clairvoyant abilities, in cross-reference with Rudolf Steiner’s work, as well as, of course, the Scriptures and (ancient) historical sources of which only some still remain today.
2) Dylan’s band: Tony Garnier (bass), Bob Britt (guitar), Doug Lancio (guitar), Anton Fig (drums); Dylan himself piano, guitar, harp, vocals; Copenhagen setlist: I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight; It Ain’t Me, Babe; I Contain Multitudes; False Prophet; When I Paint My Masterpiece; Black Rider; My Own Version of You; To Be Alone with You; Crossing the Rubicon; Desolation Row; Key West (Philosopher Pirate); Watching the River Flow; It’s All Over Now Baby Blue; I’ve Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You; Mother of Muses; Goodbye Jimmy Reed; Every Grain of Sand.
3) The entire 2022 Wall Street Journal interview can be found here on BobDylan.Com.