Overview

⏱️Schedule: Doors 18:30 → Talk 19:00 → Q&A → Mingle
🌐Language: English

Across cultures and centuries, people have turned to music when ordinary language wasn’t enough: whirling dervishes spinning to the sound of the ney, choirs filling cathedrals, devotional chants vibrating through temples. In all these traditions, music isn’t just decoration for ritual – it’s a medium for contemplation and a bridge between the human and the divine.

This idea goes back at least to Pythagoras and the “music of the spheres”: the vision that planets move according to the same ratios that shape musical intervals, forming a cosmic harmony. In many spiritual systems, the universe itself begins with sound – the Biblical logos, the Sufi sema, the Yogic Anahat Shabd or Aum: a primordial vibration seen as the foundation of existence and spiritual liberation.

Building on these roots, this lecture asks a bold question: what if musical structures are not just things we hear, but actual maps for how consciousness evolves? Drawing on George Gurdjieff’s esoteric system, we’ll look at the enneagram and the “law of octaves” as a way to understand the transmutation of energies, the three centres (physical, emotional, intellectual), and the dynamics of inner development.

Together, we’ll explore:

• Music and the sacred – how Mevlevi Sufi sema, Christian liturgy and Hindu devotional sound practices use music to connect human and divine.

• Cosmic harmony – what Pythagoras’ “music of the spheres” suggests about the link between musical intervals, planetary motion and spiritual order.

• Primordial sound – how concepts like logos, sema, Anahat Shabd and Aum imagine sound as the fundamental principle of existence and consciousness.

• The enneagram & the law of octaves – how Gurdjieff’s enneagram models the transformation of energies and the evolution of consciousness through musical dynamics.

• Music as a map – in what ways musical structures can serve as a practical framework for spiritual growth and inner work.

Expect an evening that weaves together ancient philosophy, esoteric traditions and modern musicology – more like a guided journey than a dry academic lecture. You don’t need any musical training; just curiosity about how sound, spirituality and consciousness might be more deeply connected than we usually think.

Speaker

Dr. Yaprak Melike Uyar

Musicologist, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Dr. Yaprak Melike Uyar is a musicologist and Visiting Scholar at the Department of Transcultural Musicology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Her research focuses on “sonic theologies” and the intersections between music and spirituality, as well as on jazz and popular musics of Turkey. She completed her Ph.D. in Musicology at Istanbul Technical University with a dissertation on jazz in Turkey, and has taught courses such as History of Popular Music, Jazz Appreciation, and Music & Religion. Her current work explores the spiritual soundscapes of religious communities in Berlin and the political history of Turkish popular music.

Location