RAW on Beethoven

I have found during the pandemic that few things I do are as useful in keeping me in a good mood as listening to a great deal of classical music. Yesterday, after listening to a dose that included some Beethoven, I pulled my copy of The Illuminati Papers off the shelf and re-read one of my favorite short RAW pieces, "Beethoven as Information." I can't reproduce the whole thing without committing a copyright violation, but here is a paragraph:

Perhaps some mystics have achieved higher levels of consciousness than Beethoven (perhaps!), but if so, we cannot know of it. Aleister Crowley once astonished me by writing that the artist is greater than the mystic, an odd remark from a man who was only a mediocre artist himself (although a great mystic.) Listening to Ludwig, I have come to understand what Crowley meant. The mystic, unless he or she is also an artist, cannot communicate the higher states of awareness achieved by the fully turned-on brain; but the great artist can. Listening to Beethoven, one shares, somewhat, in his expanded perceptions; and the more one listens, the more one shares. Finally, one is able to believe his promise: if one listens to that music enough, one will never be unhappy. 

The Illuminati Papers is one of my favorite RAW anthologies. Probably not a coincidence that it apparently includes material cut from the appendices in  Illuminatus!  More on The Illuminati Papers here.