Ernest G. McClain

Ernest G. McClain (born August 6, 1918 in Massillon, Ohio), is professor emeritus of music at Brooklyn College. He is known for his efforts to establish the ancient mathematical discipline of music as the means to unlock the deepest meaning of history's great religious and philosophical texts. His writings offer a persuasive explanation of crucial passages in texts of world literature -- the Bible, the Rig Veda, the Egyptian Book of the Dead, Plato -- that have defied experts in the concerned disciplines.fact|date=May 2008 All of these passages deal with numbers that have either been ignored or misinterpreted throughout the centuries.fact|date=May 2008 McClain is able to explain the meaning of these numbers within the context of four ancient mathematical disciplines: arithmetic, music, geometry and astronomy. His discovery of identical or similar numbers and parallel mathematical constructs in Sumer, Egypt, Babylon, Palestine and Greece, confirms growing speculation about the historical continuity of a common spiritual tradition linking the microcosm of the soul to the macrocosm of the universe.fact|date=May 2008 His work provides much of the missing mathematical detail for what scholars often call the Music of the Spheres. [citation|title=Critic's Notebook: Magic, Music, and Math|last=Palmer|first=Robert|journal=New York Times|date=April 23, 1987|url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE4DB113FF930A15757C0A961948260.] [citation|title=The revival of speculative music|last=Godwin|first=Jocelyn|journal=The Musical Quarterly|volume=LXVIII|issue=3|pages=373–389|doi=10.1093/mq/LXVIII.3.373|year=1982 (reprint of paper delivered to American Musicological Society, Denver, Colorado, November 1980).] [citation|last=Pont|first=Graham|title=Philosophy and Science of Music in Ancient Greece: The Predecessors of Pythagoras and their Contribution|journal=Nexus Network Journal|volume=6|issue=1|year=2004|pages=17–29|doi=10.1007/s00004-004-0003-x|url=http://www.emis.de/journals/NNJ/Pont-v6n1.html.]

Life

A 1936 graduate of Washington High School, Ohio, McClain studied at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where he graduated in 1940. After graduation, he worked in the Wadsworth, Ohio school district, but soon joined the Air Corps for World War II, where he became a lieutenant and was stationed in New Guinea and the Philippines. On his return from the war, he studied for a masters degree in music (1947) from Northwestern University, then took music instructor positions at Denison University in Granville, Ohio and the University of Hawaii. After receiving a doctorate from Teachers College, Columbia University, he joined the Music Faculty of Brooklyn College (part of the City University of New York) in 1951, where he taught until his retirement in 1982.

Early influences

McClain credits colleagues Ernst Levy and Siegmund Levarie and their writings for introducing him to Pythagoreanism via the insights of 19th century theorist Albert von Thimus, who provided the keys to unlocking Plato's mathematical riddles. His three books were published during a decade of further collaboration with Antonio de Nicolas, that opened a window into other ancient philosophical and religious writings.fact|date=May 2008

Books published

*"Myth of Invariance: The Origins of the Gods, Mathematics and Music from the Rg Veda to Plato" (Nicolas-Hays 1976), ISBN 978-0892540129
*"The Pythagorean Plato: Prelude to the song itself" (Nicolas-Hays 1978), ISBN 978-0892540105
*"Meditations Through the Quran: Tonal Images in an Oral Culture" (Nicolas-Hays 1981), ISBN 978-0892540099. [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-68890/Quran Cited as "additional reading"] by the Encyclopædia Britannica article on the Quran.

References

External links

* [http://www.ernestmcclain.net McClain's web site] , including several online articles