Charles Webster Leadbeater on Music

"If these bells are, to begin with, strongly charged with a certain type of magnetism, every form made by them will bear with it something of that influence. It is as though the wind which wafts to us snatches of music should at the same time bear with it a subtle perfume- So the bishop who blesses the bells charges them with much the same intent as he would bless holy water—with the intention that, wherever this sound shall go, all evil thought and feeling shall be banished and harmony and devotion shall prevail—a real exercise of magic, and quite effective when the magician does his work properly."

"The ringing of bells has a distinct part in the scheme of the 'Church, which in these days seems but little understood... those who know the delights of the proper performance of a triple-bob-major or a grandsire-bob-cater will perhaps be prepared to hear how singularly perfect and magnificent are the forms which are made by them. This then was one of the effects which the ordered ringing of the bells was intended to produce. It was to throw out a stream of musical forms repeated over and over again, in precisely the same way, and for precisely the same purpose, as the Christian monk repeats hundreds of Ave Marias or the northern Buddhist spends much of his life in reiterating the mystic syllables Om Mani Padme Hum, or many a Hindu makes a background to his life by reciting the name Sita Ram."