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Cyril Scott: Author, Poet and Philosopher
  by his son and administrator: Desmond Scott

  The Author

In alternative medicine Scott was a pioneer and great advocate years before it became mainstream, writing books with titles like ‘Simpler and Safer Remedies for Grievous Ills’ ‘Doctors Disease & Health’, ‘Constipation and Commonsense’ and ‘Victory Over Cancer’. His pamphlets on Black Molasses and Cider Vinegar sold in hundreds of thousands all over the world bought largely by people who were unaware he’d written a note of music!

In the three books he wrote on ethics, ‘Childishness’, (1930) ‘Man Is My Theme’ (1939) and ‘Man, the Unruly Child’ (1953), covering morals, politics, war and religion Scott contended that even after thousands of years of civilisation we have still not learned collectively to behave in an adult manner.

"What we condemn in our children", he maintained, "we condone in Nations. Children are taught it’s wrong to lie yet governments tell diplomatic lies, manufacturers tell commercial lies, politicians tell political lies and scientists fabricate the results of their experiments. If a child grabs another child’s toy it is made to return it but if a country invades another country and grabs its land it finds a thousand ways to justify its actions and seldom or never returns what it has seized." Sadly, what he wrote fifty years ago still largely applies today!

The Poet

His poetry, however, like his taste in furniture belongs firmly to the Victorian era in which he grew up. As a young man studying composition in Frankfurt in the 1890s he met the German poet Stefan George who had a lifelong influence on him as did George’s book maker and illustrator Melchior Lechter who introduced him to the Jugendstil and Pre-Raphaelite movements.When he returned to England he followed Lechter’s example and designed and chose furniture that made his lodgings look like a monastic cell and years later translated many of George’s poems into English.

Scott’s own verse is intensely romantic and melancholy. One of his favourite poets was Francis Thompson (1859-1907). Another was Ernest Dowson (1867-1900), many of whose poems he set to music. Like Dowson (‘I have been faithful to thee Cynara! in my fashion’) Scott wrote a poem to Cynara and what he said of Dowson could apply equally well to his own verse: “Although passion is not missing from some of Dowson’s lyrics, it is always enshrouded in an atmosphere of roses and violets, of softness and shadows”.

The piece by which as a composer he is best known is undoubtedly Lotusland (1905). It has been recorded over fifty times both in its original form for piano and in a wide variety of arrangements from vocals to jazz groups and from brass bands to synthesizer. Later he also wrote a poem with the same name. The thought and language carry us back to Tennyson’s ‘The Lady of Shalott’ or Rossetti’s ‘The Blessed Damozel’ but the atmosphere is entirely Scott’s own, sensuous, dreamy and otherworldly.

Lotusland

Illumed by radiance of resplendent dawns,
That flood the dazzling dome of an Eastern strand;
The Lotus-Lady mourns!
Lost in the dreamy realms of Lotusland.
Afar she looks across her lotus lawns,
By mortal step or mortal eye unscanned;
The Lotus-Lady mourns!
Kissed by the spectres lost in Lotusland.
A zone of gems her fragrant brow adorns,
By seven mystic maids her face is fanned
The Lotus-Lady mourns!
For her lover fled from Lotusland.

Around the same time (1912) Scott composed a suite of five short piano pieces he called Poems with titles such as ‘Bells’, ‘The Garden of Soul-Sympathy’ and ‘Paradise Birds’. Again he wrote verses with the same titles. Both poems and music are complete in themselves but here Scott’s thought was to have them performed together, the combination creating an experience more deeply felt and intense than either on its own.

There are many recordings of the Poems and often the liner notes provide the text of the verses but so far none has put together voice and piano as Scott intended. In the public lectures I have given, Corinne Langston has recited the verses while various musicians have played the work and the result has been all that Scott hoped for!

The Philosopher

Reacting against what he regarded as the narrow piety of his Victorian parents Scott briefly turned agnostic, then became interested in Theosophy and finally in Occultism which he described as a synthesis of Science, Philosophy and Religion. It influenced his life profoundly. In two books, ‘An Outline of modern Occultism’ (1925) and his second autobiography ‘Bone of Contention’, (1969) published a year before his death, he set down the following principles of Occultism.

• That from the Occult viewpoint the basic truths of all the great religions are the same, differing only in their outer manifestations.
  
• That there is no such thing as the supernatural, but only the supernormal;
  
• That Spirit is Matter in its rarest aspect and Matter is Spirit in its varying degrees grossest form.
  
• That Occultism embraces Karma (the law of cause and effect) and Reincarnation.
  
• That there is a Heirarchy of those who, after many incarnations have evolved more than the great majority of humanity.
  
• These Initiates, Sages, or Masters seek to further the spiritual evolution of all humanity by inspiring the best in philosophical, religious, scientific, ideological and artistic trends. But as Man has a measure of free will they always seek to guide and never to coerce.

In 1920 he wrote the first volume of an extremely popular trilogy concerning one such Initiate, simply titled The Initiate. The second and third volumes, The Initiate in the New World and The Initiate in the Dark Cycle followed in 1927 and 1932. They remain in print today, are still being translated into different languages, and have been optioned for a film.

Another book, again largely governed by his Occult beliefs was Music, Its Secret Influence Throughout the Ages. In it he states that certain composers throughout history have been inspired by Initiates and by one in particular, Master K.H. This is a thought-provoking and intriguing book which despite, or perhaps because of, its controversial thesis was also very popular. First published in 1933, it remained in print for over fifty years reprinted in both hard cover and paperback editions. Beethoven said music could change the world. Scott agreed but in his book goes further and maintains it influences the world in much more profound ways than we imagine.