Intelligence vs. Knowledge

“Knowledge is one of the greatest means of asserting power. Man has obtained power over nature and other human beings by brute force and also by knowledge and intelligence. It is uncertain which is the stronger, for strength and intelligence are the two aspects of the power-drive. They account for the many primitive animal stories in which the witty, clever one outwits the strong one: the hyena outwits the lion, and in South America the little dwarf stag outwits even the tiger. This shows up in the power-drive of the single individual; for instance, in the animus of women—either they trick their husbands or they make brutal scenes. Emotional brutality and cunning are the two manifestations of power. When my power-drive is irritated, I either hit the other person directly, or, if I am too cowardly or not strong enough, then I find a way of tricking him.

Our consciousness is still secretly coupled with these two tendencies for domination, and knowledge is generally combined with them. You see this most irritatingly in the prestige drive of the academic world. It is a rare event in university life that a professor is interested in truth for its own sake; usually he is more interested in his position and in being the first to have said something. Twenty- five years ago an anthropologist dug up an amazing skull in Tanganyika—what anthropologists had been searching for for years—the “missing link.” It lies between the anthropoid ape and the human species and, as shown by the Geiger-counter, adds about ten million years to the age of the human race. It has thus thrown over all the former findings of anthropology. This man published the facts about his discovery, but for twenty-five years, with the exception of Professor Broom in America, there was dead silence in all the universities. The discovery was absolutely ignored. Not one professor of anthropology corresponded with the publisher or tried to check up on the age of the skull. A Geiger-counter could have been used and a check made, but nobody did so for that would have meant revising their theories. They would have to say that something said in a former lecture must now be corrected, and academic vanity, the power-drive of the intellect, would not permit such a thing. Now another skeleton has been dug up in Italy, and facts are accumulating, so now, hesitatingly, here and there an anthropologist makes tentative allusion to such a discovery, but for twenty-five years they all sat on their power-knowledge and were not interested in the truth. 

Remark:Les savants ne son pass curieux, as the French say.

 Yes, exactly! Which shows that the power which is contained in knowledge, the demonic drive to dominate through knowledge, is stronger than the objective interest in finding out any kind of truth. This is only one example. There are many others.”

   The Problem of the Puer Aeternus         Marie-Louise von Franz

In the world of singing, this has become the prevalent condition. Thirty years ago there was still some intuitive teaching being done by the ones who were interested in getting at the truth of the voice through the sound. Those ears were geared to a certain vibration, and they knew how to extricate it from the singer. Advantage—it created artists and longevity for the voice. Disadvantage—it took a long time to coordinate, and was not readily accessible. In our fast, youth oriented world at the present time, the duty of the teacher is to turn out as many young voices as they possibly can, as quickly as they can. A great young voice can fool us into thinking that here is a great artist—however, this is not true. As musical as they may be, as talented as they may be, the voice, if not prepared properly will run amuck. Have the teachers of singing lost their knowledge of how the voice works? Yes. They only have the information.

It seems we have become addicted to information. This is easy to do, because we don’t have to become involved. The teacher and the student don’t have to share what things “feel” like, because that would undermine the power-drive of the teacher over the student. Information is useful only to the extent that it leads to awakening the conscious mind to the truth. The truth is a combination of the emotional, the physical and the intellectual—and eventually this truth activates the brain to do the work. When we become drugged with the idea that information alone will somehow connect us to this inner power with no regard for the other two, we become rigid in our thinking—or lack of it—and rely on our conscious mind to manipulate the body to suit our purposes. When we become emotionally attached to this process, the result may be somewhat competent, but does not lead us to our full potential. Our conscious mind is still holding onto the power of the intellect.   

The difference between knowledge and information is experience. Information means nothing if it is not coupled with the experience. The missing link in singing is the inability of the teacher to direct the student to the experience of his/her correct sound. The information usually given the singer would lead him/her to believe that singing is an extension of our everyday speech--that the sound of the singing voice is a deepening-- by manipulation-- of our speaking voice. The lowering of the larynx to produce sound, and the use of the body to “support”, to push air out to vibrate the cords, are prevalent bits of information universally being taught. If the teacher knows the correct sound, he/she must be as frustrated as the singer when they cannot get it to work. One of my students made the comment that there must be a conspiracy to keep singer’s throat’s closed on the part of the teachers, but there is really nothing as sinister as that afoot. The information they are using makes perfect sense to the intellect, and yet in actual fact never produces the right sound. In this way, by insisting on the same information without leading the student to their correct sound, the power-drive must remain intact. When the truth is present there is no need for the power-drive. Remember, the pupil is always the one who takes the blame if it doesn’t work. Again, there seems to be no need to search for the truth.

The trend in buying furniture these days is to put it together yourself. In this case, you have a definite end product. In the case of the voice, this is not so. You don’t need any more screws or bolts than necessary—no more tools than required—so just follow the directions. We must find the voice hidden within by means of conscious information. Even though the end product is not obvious in a voice at first, the diagram to show you how to put it together should be as detailed, but not more so, as the chart for assembling the bookcase or the table. No more or no less. The end product should be the universal sound that is inherent in all voices—that squillo, which makes every voice basically the same, and yet amazingly different for each singer. In coordinating the voice, a minimum amount of information is needed, but the reason it takes time is that all the elements involved to sing must happen at the same time. It takes an incredible balance—conscious at first—which puts this whole puzzle together. Then the pineal gland should open, and the conscious information should become what nature created it to be, a return to the inner self. Even a combination lock will not open if the numbers are not dialed in the correct order. Right, 2, Left, 21, Right 15 is the combination. Then the lock will open easily. Even if the information for singing is correct, the secret is to have them happen in the right order to easily open the throat, same as the lock. Then we have the most sound with the least effort. The body was created to be efficient. With our information we have tried to control the body to do our bidding—this is our power-drive. Our ego has a tough time letting go of this control, and yet it is the only path to becoming an artist and finding your real voice.

Many students are intellectually given intuitive suggestions to find their sound. “Sing to the balcony,” “throw your voice to the back of the room,” “float the sound,” etc., etc., but if there is not some kind of instruction book to explain how this happens in the body, the singer is all at sea. He and the teacher remain in some kind of Never-never land-- one as confused as the other. I have seen, however, many books of instructions for singers that simply don’t work. Therefore, it keeps many singers locked away intellectually, trying to open that combination lock with the information Right, 15, Left 21, Right 2. What this combination produces is resonance in the voice, not squillo. The information is there, but the combination lock—the throat-- will not open. However, considering power- drive, only the student can admit being confused, and feels guilty for not catching on. It would be too devastating for the teacher to admit such a thing. Most don’t hear the difference between these two sounds anyway.     

Abuse is another prevalent way of keeping students. There are two kinds of abuse—mental and physical. Many singers are used to being mistreated, and actually believe unless they leave their lessons in tears the teacher hasn’t done their job. Because they feel worthless and unable to meet the demands of the teacher, the student can never comprehend that he would ever to able to take control and find out things out for himself. That would be intolerable to the power-drive of the teacher {substitute critical parent} anyway. And also, if the work being done is not physically demanding, there must now be something wrong with the teacher’s expertise. The insistence on making singing difficult and hard to do physically is a power trip. The advice to go to the gym and become stronger is also another bit of erroneous information. I’d like to see Pavarotti or Caballe do 50 pushups or even warm their voice up for half an hour before a performance. Ever hear of COORDINATION! After a period of time, warming up should be a function of the brain. Five minutes, at most, should put your body in the correct mental state to sing. However, I do believe physical abuse is better than mental abuse, because at least the teaching is attacking the body and not the mind to such a great extent. However, once the student has swallowed the idea that it takes strength to sing, it is just as difficult to convince him/her that the opposite is true. When the information is erroneous or misleading, the difficulty is to erase the wrong mental gymnastics. When there is a combination of both physical and mental abuse, the remedial process is a long haul.

                        “It is never too late to be what you could have become.”

                                                       George Eliot

As I was walking down Central Park West, I spied this axiom written in bold letters on a church’s bulletin board. It really struck me how true this really is. All that is needed is the correct information coupled with the experience to extricate ourselves from our dilemma of not being able to accomplish what we set out to do or be. So many statements we have accumulated in our life have nothing to do with the truth. In singing it is particularly true. Simply by introducing a student to his/her instrument and leading them in the direction of their real sound, sooner or later we can arrive at some idea of how to begin to coordinate their voice and get some idea of their real sound. Information is required to do this, but must be tailored to each student’s individual voice. The information is always the same, and yet always can be expanded or contracted according to the needs of the particular singer. Cinderella’s slipper didn’t fit anyone else’s foot. Rigid information doesn’t fit everybody’s voice. We all wear shoes—but our feet are not all the same size. Neither are our throats. We are all unique, and therefore trying to fit this same information onto everyone’s throat is useless. Information then becomes a power-drive for many teachers, with little regard for the sound being produced or the throat they are teaching.

After working with a singer the other evening, I realized one was understanding the function of the voice in an intellectual way. The next singer was understanding the function in an emotional way, and another was feeling it in a physical way. Teaching must therefore be able to move in the direction of the needs of each singer although the information remains the same. Just as the glass slipper wouldn’t fit anyone else, information cannot be a power trip for the instructor being imposed on the singer. Making a small voice big, or a big voice small is not the goal of the teacher of singing. Finding the balance for each person is the process.

And yet, how we stick to our information. If someone questions us about it we race to defend it whether it works in reality or not. Day after day I hear wrong information, wrong ideas, wrong concepts being said about the voice. In our intellectual way, we have come to believe that man has power over Nature, and that the voice can be controlled—our own power-drive—by our accumulation of information. This power-drive has invaded the teaching world, and God forbid you should come up with some conflicting information. Even though it never works, they don’t want to admit that they might be wrong—same as the anthropologists. A new way of looking at things does not interest the academic establishments. The professors—all birds of a feather—do not want to lose his/her position, or his/her power-drive over the students. They would have to admit that “something must now be corrected and academic vanity, the power-drive of the intellect, would not permit such a thing.” Therefore, from them, we have learned this information and if we aren’t using it to control Nature or someone else, we are using it to close us off from our own experience.

I was sent to an optometrist by my nutritionist. He suggested I see this new doctor to correct my faulty view of the world. O.K., I’m up for it, so here goes. The examination lasted four hours, and he ended up prescribing my new glasses with my eyes closed! The experience was indeed an eye-opener. Every truth is the same. He prescribed my glasses to open the pineal gland, which is what we see with—not our eyes. With the new lenses, the deeper I breathed, the more I could see because it let more light into my pineal gland. The cure for my bad eyesight was simple—if I forgot to breathe, I didn’t see. {Anything sounding familiar here?} I was absolutely astounded in the parallel between what he was saying and what I was working with in teaching singing. And, it works! The prescription for my lenses is over half the strength I had when I went to him, and this is after another 12 years has passed. Never mind, the point is, the last time I talked to him he had contacted the universities here in New York to elicit some interest in his work. He was met with a resounding, “We’re not interested. We’re doing very well the way we are.” So much for finding out anything about truth. They weren’t even curious. How sad.

As the opening paragraphs by Marie-Louise von Franz state, “That is only one example. There are many others.”  We are living in a time when information without experience is rampant. We have become blind and deaf to “feeling,” and remain enslaved by our conscious mind in its attempt to control and maintain its power-drive. We don’t have to stay in this sleep state unless we choose to do so. We can “be what we could have been.” All we have to do is rid ourselves of the information that does not “feel” right to us, and begin to experience things as they really are. We are being lied to daily by the media, and fed such trivia which should offend us mightily, and yet we turn a deaf ear and a blind eye to these things because they come from this great power-drive energy. We’d rather roll over and play dead. It takes a great deal of courage and will power to start thinking clearly again, and unless we have a great deal of help and trust in our own recovery, we will find it much, much easier to stay mired down and continue to wallow in our own helplessness. We have lots of company there.

On the sidewalk, March 25^th, 2001, in New York City, written in chalk, was this message: “Be mindful even though your mind is full. Delvagas.” We truly suffer from this glut of information invading our minds. The brain has little chance to function as it was meant to, because the conscious mind is so busy gathering this information. Our intuitive self is locked away behind this very busy, voracious mind. It seems we can’t wait for another clever person to happen along, another news report to fill us with horror, or a TV show to bring us yet another Titanic “experience.” We don’t have time to experience any of it firsthand, so we live this information vicariously. Our whole way of living comes from outer stimulation. We have become drugged and stopped thinking for ourselves. The power-drive of others depends totally on the sleep state we have allowed ourselves to sink into. 

It has been predicted that by 2012 we will be through this period of Dark Energy. We can all be pioneers in seeing to it that we seek out fellow pioneers in whatever field we choose, and get back to the truth of things as they really are—not be swayed by anyone else’s power-drive. The majority of the people will continue to ride the train until it derails, no matter what. We have to make sure we aren’t on that train—it’s leading to disaster. Seek out the truth, allow your information to lead you into experiencing yourself—not someone else’s opinion of what or who you are—and the valuable years ahead will lead you and others out of this intellectual swamp they have created in their quest for power.