In 1928, my very distant relative James McCorkindale wrote a quirky little hymn in Glasgow called ‘The Wireless Set’. It holds an endearingly simple yet profound premise. Our attunement to the spiritual realm is somewhat like the antennae of a Wireless Radio.
The Wireless Set (1928)
Words: James McCorkindale
I have a wonderful wireless set,
Divine is the music and message I get.
Loudspeaker nor crystal nor valve is there,
For the name of my set is earnest prayer.
Chorus
My aerial’s fixed to the Cross away,
On the brow of the hill at Calvary,
And often I’m thankful when tempted to sin,
That my earphones are on, and I’m listening in.
Wireless Radio was a revolutionary technology at that time, emerging in a world rapidly becoming wrapped in electrical wires and circuits, crystal sets and valves, transistors and currents .Suddenly an unseen realm appeared. The skies were not empty. They were full. Full of unseen transmissions, full of signal, full of information and all it takes is the right receiver, tuned to the right frequency, for the invisible to become suddenly audible.
I’m tuned to the broadcasting station on high,
Called by the Saviour to P-R-A-Y.
He purchased my license on Calvary’s tree,
And down through the ages He sent it to me.
There is a delightful version on Youtube of a young Scottish organist, Peter Taylor singing My Wonderful Wireless Set from Scottish Evangelist Seth Sykes Hymnal. While the artistic merit of the hymn is debatable, the idea is still one of the central issues around which questions of consciousness and perception constellate, perhaps even more so today than ever. From whence does consciousness emerge? Is it internal or external? Innate or emergent?
I’m tuned to the broadcasting station on high,
Called by the Saviour to P-R-A-Y.
He purchased my license on Calvary’s tree,
And down through the ages He sent it to me.
I suppose I imagine it as a mysterious, multi directional, bio-neuro-electrical kind of living interface between both. It’s something I’ve explored a lot in my art and ponderings…this sense of being a receiver as much as a maker, and the curious question of whether “creative vision” is generated from within… or picked up from beyond. A place where synchronicity, starts to look less like “magic” and more like signal behaviour…pattern breaking through static. Its why I keep coming back to the same essential elements – copper spirals and clay vessels and electric hot plate coils in my art work, playing with these ideas tangibly and symbolically.
Uncle James is in good company. There is a rich heritage of artists, writers and composers – Dostoevsky, William Blake, Prince, David Bowie, Bob Dylan, and Jung among them – who all speak, in one way or another, of creative sensitivity and a visionary connection to “other realms”.
Perhaps, as the Eurythmics suggested, we really might be talking to Angels sometimes. I certainly believe it happens…
“I’ve found a new kind of aerial wire,
It catches the sound of the angel choir.
I’m learning the song of the angels by heart,
For I know that one day I’ll be singing a part.“
James McCorkindale 1928 Hymn
“You may possess a set like this,
And capture the beauty of heavenly bliss.
Ask Jesus, He’ll give you entirely free,
The same kind of set that He’s given to me.“
Amidst the cacophony of noise, perhaps our agency may lie in what signal we decide to tune in to. And if Uncle James is right, that just might make all the the difference in the world…and beyond.
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