Thursday, March 02, 2017

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.61: Light and Sound


Seemingly taking their lead from the Church of the Throne of Light (with whom they form part of an ecumenical federation), the similarly-titled Eastcote Fraternity of Light have also recently added a quite remarkable stained glass window to their place of worship. Whilst foregrounding a rather understated example of conventional Christian iconography, the surrounding nimbus is composed of a dizzying chromatic display of scintillating shards of light. The effect is even more pronounced at night, when the window is backlit by a spotlight, the colour of whose light alternates at irregular intervals.

Whatever their doctrinal affiliations, the Fraternity of Light certainly seem to adhere to nonconformist liturgical practices: on certain nights a low, discordant hum can be heard emanating from the church hall, accompanied by the sound of muted chanting in no known human tongue - both eerily co-ordinated with the rhythm of an unearthly and atonal music, which in turn weaves its strange sonic pattern in time with the unpredictable shifting light of the stained glass window.

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