The Science of Religion. Howard Barry Schatz

      Notice of Rights

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      Acknowledgements

      The most logical title for this text would probably be “The History and Science of Religion.” However, the current title reflects the profound notion that modern science is capable of anchoring the diversity of religious dogma within a comprehensive scientific framework. But to even suggest that a science of religion exists as an objective common ground is to swim against a very strong worldwide current of religious tradition and academic scholarship.

      As a college student I had the good fortune to study with friend and mentor Dr. Ernest McClain, who taught me that the ancient mathematical discipline of music was the only way to unlock the deepest meaning of history’s great religious and philosophical texts. McClain’s writings survey crucial mathematical passages in texts of world literature — the Bible, the Rig Veda, the Egyptian Book of the Dead, Plato — points that often challenged or eluded experts in the concerned disciplines.

      McClain credits colleagues Ernst Levy and Siegmund Levarie for introducing him to Pythagoreanism via the insights of 19th century scholar Albert von Thimus. Von Thimus was a pioneer in suggesting that a Pythagorean approach to the mathematics of music might help explain the many confusing mathematical passages in Plato’s dialogues. McClain applied this Pythagorean approach to Plato, and to many other important texts of world literature, revealing music as the key to deciphering the deepest meaning of many ancient texts. My own writings are an attempt to expand on this thesis by considering the scientific, historical, theological, and sociological implications of McClain’s work, in order to synthesize a comprehensive history and science of gnosticism, as a plausible framework for interfaith discussion.

      First, I would like to thank Dr. McClain for giving my life meaning with all that he taught me. Few texts are written without extensive help from others, and I am grateful to Linda Prudhomme for continually encouraging me to keep the text as simple and clear as possible. I would also like to thank my mother, Anita Weiss, for her painting of “The Garden of Eden” featured on the book’s cover. I’d like to thank Charles Bentz for his drawing of “The New Jerusalem”; Jonathan Clark for his poem “Autumn Rhapsody”; Duane Christensen, Ivan Matetic, Gregory Rosen, and Arthur Lindberg for their insight and edits; and finally, to Charles Weiss, Lisa Moose, Ted Weg, Donna Kasmer, Terrence Bazylewicz, Pete Dello, Faisal Malik, Asad Gilani, Peter Duff, and Jonathan Clark for their comments, criticisms, suggestions, and encouragement.

      Preface

       The only writings attributed to the great patriarch Abraham by the Orthodox Jewish community is a tiny sacred text called the Sefer Yetzirah (Book of Creation). Most Orthodox rabbis believe that this text somehow reveals the great mysteries of Scripture. I am convinced that the oldest monotheistic text on the Jewish mystical tradition of Kabbalah has not been properly understood for more than 2500 years. That may explain why so few people are even aware of the book’s existence. Rabbis and scholars have filled libraries with their Kabbalistic speculations about the inner meaning of Scripture. These views are based on the fact that Hebrew letters also function as numbers. After years of my close association with the Orthodox Jewish community, I have found that rabbis and Jewish scholars have never understood how Hebrew letter/numbers actually extend into mathematics and science. When read through the eyes of Abraham I would suggest that there is a great deal more depth to the Bible than people realize.

      The reader might wonder what could possibly distinguish my effort from the efforts of the great rabbis and scholars of the past, who have tried but failed to penetrate the great mysteries of the Sefer Yetzirah and the Bible. I would never have guessed that a degree in music composition and theory was exactly the right educational background necessary to explore the origins and history of a very real science of religion. For more than 40 years, I have been fascinated, and even obsessed, with Pythagorean music theory. Two great Jewish scholars, Gershom Scholem and Leo Baeck, both tell us that the ancient Greek Pythagorean tradition might be the only way to decipher the meaning of the Sefer Yetzirah. Although neither of these learned men understood the mathematical/musical details of this tradition, my work suggests that both men were correct in their assumption. The Pythagorean tradition, which academics often call “The Harmony of the Spheres,” is based upon the mathematical structure of sound that integrates the exact sciences of antiquity into a complete cosmology and cosmogony. The key to Abraham’s writings, and to many of the great religious and philosophical writings of the ages (including Plato’s dialogues and the Bible), must include a basic understanding of ancient music theory.

      During the early 1970’s, I wrote a college paper on Pythagorean music theory for my first course in music history. The paper completely baffled my professor. I was called into the chairman of the music department’s office, and was asked to explain it to my professor, to the chairman, and to the deputy chairman. After hearing my explanation, they decided to give the paper to Professor Ernest McClain, who had spent much of his life studying this obscure subject. On Dr. McClain’s recommendation, school administrators established an honors graduate seminar that would enable him to teach me independently. Only years later did I find out that, during his long teaching career, I was his only student in Pythagorean studies.

      What McClain taught me over the next few years would transform my life. He taught me that music theory unlocked the meaning of the oldest Hindu text, the Rig Veda. He also taught me how to understand Plato’s mysterious mathematical allegories in terms of Pythagorean music theory. During this period, to help defray my living expenses while attending college, I taught 4th grade in a private Chasidic school in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. It was a Belzer Yeshiva, named for a town in the Ukraine called Belz. The 2nd grade teacher in the next room brought me to Crown Heights, also in Brooklyn, suggesting that I study with the Lubavitch (another Chasidic sect, named after a town in Russia called Lyubavichi). For a brief time I studied the Torah and Talmud at Hadar Hatorah, a rabbinical seminary in Crown Heights. I had been putting most of my effort into learning the “Bible of Chasidus,” called the Tanya, when I discovered the community’s library of English translations. After spending many months in this library, I realized that the mathematics and music theory that McClain had taught me during our study of Plato was also showing up in sacred Jewish texts. Before graduating and parting ways with McClain I brought him a copy of both the Tanya and the Sefer Yetzirah and mentioned to him that these were the texts we would need to fully understand if we ever hoped to decipher the secrets of the Bible. After graduating with a degree in music composition, I lost contact with McClain for more than 30 years, but I never gave up on my research.

      It took me all of those 30 years to solve the Sefer Yetzirah’s mathematical riddles, which became the focus of my first book, The Lost Word of God (Tone Circle Pub., 2007). Just before publication, however, I searched for and found my old professor, Dr. McClain. He was

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