Musique et conscience

Abstract

The present article sets out to show that music can well slip through the mesh of consciousness. It is intended to foster deep inquiry and multidisciplinary research in a newly-born and very promising field of study. It could, indeed, soon, provide society with a set of scientific as well as technical innovations pertaining to different domains such as medicine, education, interrogation techniques, and neuromarketing. The ethical gap between all its possible applications and consequences raises major concerns about its implementation by private-sector companies. It should exclusively serve public interest. Music’s effects upon the human body have been rediscovered in the West, quite accidentally, through the work of anthropologists and ethnologists who carried out field studies involving total immersion in indigenous cultures. It is precisely at this point that the Lévi-straussian legacy acquires its relevance to my inquiry. Besides it is worth noting that Claude Lévi-Strauss paid great attention to musical components which, at least partially, make up the shamanistic cure.