|
Excerpts
on the subject from HEALING SOUNDS: THE POWER OF HARMONICS
From Chapter 1 “Hermetic Harmonics”
WHEN I FIRST BEGAN WORKING WITH SOUND AND MUSIC FOR HEALING,
I understood that everything was based upon frequency. As the Hermetic
Principles tell us, the universe is nothing, more or less, than an endless
number of vibrations and rhythms. Yet, as I began to pursue and study
this work more, I began to notice another interesting phenomenon. Sometimes
different people apparently used different frequencies or different
sounds to heal the same problem. ‘How could this be?’ I wondered,
unless there was something else besides the frequency. There must have
been something equally important in sound that I had been ignoring.
It was my friend and fellow colleague Steven Halpern, PhD, who first
brought my attention to the missing area in question. ‘Sound is
a carrier wave of consciousness,’ Steven said. This means that
depending upon where an individual’s awareness is placed when he
creates a certain sound, the sound will carry information on that state
to the person receiving it. If, for example, you are angry and you create
a sound, even though it may be a pleasant sound, you will be sending
anger that is incorporated into that sound. This will be perceived on
some subtle level by those receiving the sound.
I like to think of this as the intent or purpose behind the sound. With
this word ‘intent’, we are really talking about the consciousness
of the sound being created. This encompasses the overall state of the
person making the sound and involves the physical, mental, emotional
and spiritual aspects of that person. The initial understanding of intention
involves our conscious mind. Is the conscious intent of the sound to
heal or to hurt, or is there no specific intent or purpose there at
all?
A more advanced understanding of intent involves what may be understood
as alignment with the purpose of our higher selves, or the ‘Divine
Will’. It is that aspect of consciousness that is able to align
with the sacred energy of sound. It is ‘Thy will’, not ‘my
will’. When we have reached this level, our intent is to become
a vehicle for sacred sound and we are able to by-pass the lesser aspects
of self which may be out of balance. For many people, the initial understanding
of intent is a major stepping stone in using sound as a transformative
and therapeutic tool, for most of us have never created sound with conscious
awareness and purpose.
Once I began to bring the concept of intent into the area of healing
with sound, answers appeared for me. The concept of intent relates to
the Hermetic Principle that all is mind, for intent stems from the mind
of the creator of sound. All is vibration and rhythm, but what is the
intent behind the energy?
Dr. John Diamond, MD, worked for years with behavioral kinesiology,
a method of muscle testing. With kinesiology you would test a person
to determine if his muscle was strengthened or weakened by an external
force or stimulus. For example, when someone held a cigarette and you
pressed their arm down, their arm would be much weaker than before they
held the cigarette. Cigarettes, among many other things, tend to rob
us of our life energy.
Dr. Diamond spent many years demonstrating that not only would certain
substances make us strong or weak, but that music could do the same
thing. The main aspect of what made the music positive and strengthening
or negative and weakening depended upon the intention of the person
creating the music.
An example of this was demonstrated when I listened to a classical piece
performed by an orchestra with a well-known conductor. While I listened
to this piece of music, I had my muscle tested for strength or weakness.
I was also asked just to observe my respiration and my heart beat: both
of these were slow; I was breathing deeply and regularly.
Then I listened to the same piece of classical music performed by the
same orchestra with a different conductor. The music went on and before
I was muscle tested, I was again asked to observe my heartbeat and respiration.
Much to my amazement, I found that I was breathing shallowly and that
my pulse was faster. When I was muscle tested, I tested weakly. What
was different? It was the same piece of music with the same orchestra!
How could such a dramatic change have taken place within me? The answer
lay with the conductor.
The first conductor was a man who was loved and revered by the classical
community. He really seemed to be in touch with the flow of music that
was being created and acted as a conduit for the music. His music made
me strong. The second conductor was a very strict and regimented man
who created fear in those with whom he worked. His music always had
to be perfect. His reputation and his ego were committed every time
he picked up the baton. His music made me weak. Here was a perfect example
of intention creating the difference in the effect of the music. The
sound had been the same and yet the influence it had had upon me was
very different.
The major focus in this book is upon the human voice. There are two
reasons for this. First, the human voice is the most accessible of instruments.
We do not have to go out and buy a piece of scientific machinery or
a musical instrument in order to experience harmonics. Second, the easiest
instrument through which intention can be focused and channeled is the
human voice. It is a bit more difficult to pick up an instrument and
project your intent. It is more difficult to turn on a machine and project
your intention, especially if the machine is designed for healing and
all you have to do is turn it on and leave the room.
Because of this understanding of the importance of intention within
the use of sound as a modality for healing and transformation, I have
created a formula which is important for us to comprehend. It is this:
FREQUENCY + INTENTION = HEALING.
It means that the intention of the
person working with the sound is as important as the frequency which
is being projected at a person to create resonant frequency healing.
Since the concept of intention is, at present, a scientifically immeasurable
quality, it is extremely difficult for many in the medical community
to understand it. Nevertheless, I am convinced that this formula is
correct and that without the aspect of intention, working with pure
frequency alone is not the answer.
This is another reason why I have been working more closely with the
human voice. When we have learned techniques for harmonic toning, the
human voice is able to create nearly every frequency, at least within
the bandwidth of audible hearing. Due to the Principle of Correspondence,
these sounds can potentially relate to any vibrating object. We therefore
have the resonance and entrainment aspects of sound within our own capacity.
Try this for yourself. Take a little phrase such as ‘I really like
you’ and project different qualities on to this. For example, say
‘I really like you’ and imagine saying this to a loved one
such as a parent, a child, a brother or a good friend whom you haven’t
seen in a long time. Close your eyes and see this person and say ‘I
really like you’ to them. Now imagine that you are with a person
whom you find sexually attractive. It may be a husband, wife, boy or
girl friend. Whoever it is, imagine your attraction to this person and
then say ‘I really like you’ and perceive the difference in
the way you felt it from the first time you said it.
Now imagine that you are with a person who is a dreaded enemy. This
is someone you really don’t like and really can’t stand to
be with. Now close your eyes and feel the disharmony in the situation
and now say ‘I really like you’ to this imagined person. It
may sound very different or it may sound very similar. But the energy
behind this ‘I really like you’ is certainly different from
the other two. Even if you use the exact tone of voice with all three
‘I really like you’s, do you think the different people receiving
these sounds would be able to perceive the differences in intention
in them? They are the same words (the same frequency) but with the different
intentions they will affect us very, very differently.
We can learn to use our voices for positive means or we can create the
opposite effect. The human voice seems to be the most potent creator
of sound frequencies that can be coupled with intention.
An additional formula which uses the same principles of frequency and
intention is:
VISUALIZATION + VOCALIZATION = MANIFESTATION.
This formula developed through an examination of the creation myths
from many different traditions. In many of these myths, the creator
God would manifest the world and all its objects through sound. This
God would visualize or first think of the object to create, placing
intention upon this. Then the God would vocalize the sound for the object,
creating its frequency and bringing it into being.
In Genesis, 1:3, for example, we have: ‘And God said, Let there
be light: and there was light.’ The creator God speaks the name
‘Light’ and through this creates Light. Similarly, the Ancient
Egyptians believed that the God Thoth would speak the name of an object
and bring it into being. Other examples of this creation through sound
are:
‘In the beginning was the Word.’ (St. John, 1:1)
‘In the beginning was Brahman with whom was the Word.’ (Vedas)
The Hopi legends tell of the Spider Woman who sang the song of creation
over the inanimate forms on the earth and brought them to life. And
from Popul Vuh in the Mayan tradition, the first real men are given
life by the soul power of the voice.
Through the principles related in this writing, we can understand how
the voice may be used to heal and transform. We can embody the mystical
and sacred power of sound and rediscover our own innate ability to use
our voices as extraordinary instruments of health and well-being…
From Chapter 10 “Overtoning”
The importance of ‘intention’ has been stressed in various
chapters throughout this book. Intention is the energy behind the sound
being created. It is the consciousness we have when we are making a
sound. While intention seems to be a very ethereal concept and certainly
difficult to quantify, I have little doubt that as we become more aware
of the power of sound to heal and transform, intention will become an
aspect of sound that receives much more attention.
The human voice is able to focus and project energy of intention during
sound-making better than any other instrument. Some scientific machinery
may be geared towards projecting the specific frequencies of an organ
to that organ. However, it is easy enough for the applier of these sounds
to be using such instruments on someone while daydreaming of a time
at the beach or something else. When we use our voice ourselves or on
someone else, we immediately focus on the present moment in order to
create a healing situation. We come in the now and our intention is
similarly focused.
We can easily understand this concept of intention in relationship to
the human voice by thinking of the ability of singers to affect us.
We can listen to a vocalist with an extraordinarily excellent voice
(a voice whose frequencies correct) and yet be perfectly bored. We may
hear this excellent voice, but something is missing and the sound does
not affect us. Yet, we can listen to a singer whose voice is craggy
and perhaps critically defined as poor and be moved tears by their sounds.
The difference in the ability of these two singers to affect is certainly
not in the frequencies they are projecting. It must lie, therefore,
in the intention they have in creating their sounds. We may find as
we continue this investigation into the therapeutic effects of sound
that intention is of equal, if not greater, importance than the actual
sound being created. Where is intention created? It is created in our
minds and our hearts before we make a sound. It can be an imaging or
a visualization that we focus upon, which we project upon the sound
when we make it. When is the intention created? It is usually created
during the breath we take before we make the sound. In particular, it
seems to be most effective at the stillpoint that occurs when the breath
is already in our lungs waiting to be released.
This stillpoint between the in-breath and the out-breath (in our case,
the sound) is believed by many to be the time during the cycle of the
breath when the human body is locked in resonance with itself. Scientist
Itzhak Bentov, among others, believes that during this time, the body
creates a wave form that operates at about 7.8 cycles per second. This
is a frequencywhich is believed to be the resonant frequency of the
Earth and that during this time, we are, however briefly, also locked
in resonance with the energy of the Earth.
For a moment, take a breath, hold it and then release it. See if you
feel this stillpoint. The breath is the key to all sounds that we create
using our own voice. Without our breath there is no sound. Breath is
the essence of life, for without our breath, we would have no life.
In many different traditions, the life energy inherent in breath is
considered sacred. This energy is called ‘prana’ in the Hindu
traditions. In Orient, it is called ‘chi’ or ‘ki’.
The Hebrew word for breath is ‘ruach’ which is the same as
the Hebrew word for ‘spirit.
Please note that while this stillpoint may be considered by some to
be the most ideal point at which to project intention onto sound, it
is by no means the only place where this may be done. If, during your
projection of intention you find yourself becoming too concerned with
focusing intention only upon the stillpoint—to the degree that
this becomes a distraction with regard to generating the energy of intention—it
is suggested that you work with focusing intention in a manner that
feels comfortable and natural to you. In this writing are only suggestions
–one does not want to get locked in or fixed in the belief that
“this is the only way”. There are many different ways of working
with intent...
There
is one addition to the projection of sound upon intent that is very
helpful when done either individually or in a group setting. When making
the sounds, imagine that there is a beam of energy coming from your
heart, your throat and your third eye. Imagine this energy coming out
of your centers and meeting at the point of a triangle that is the beam
of sacred sound. From your heart is coming Divine Love, from your throat
is coming Divine Sound and from your third eye is coming Divine Wisdom
as you make the sound. This visualization will enhance the sacred sound
and make this work with projecting sacred sound even more effective.
Resources
for further information:
The
Sound Healers Association (P.O. Box 2240, Boulder CO 80306, 303-443-8181)
offers training seminars by Jonathan Goldman, sells a nationwide directory
of sound healers and other sound healing related books, tapes and products
and prints informational literature.
Recommended
reading:
HEALING SOUNDS by Jonathan Goldman (Element Books, 1992)
SOUNDING THE INNER LANDSCAPE (Caduceus Press, 1990)
MUSIC AND SOUND IN THE HEALING ARTS by John Beaulieu (Station Hill,
1987)
MUSIC: PHYSICIAN FOR TIMES TO COME edited by Don Campbell (Quest, 1989)
SOUND HEALERS ASSOCIATION INTERNATIONAL DIRECTORY (SHA, 1995)
© 2002
Jonathan Goldman
We invite you
to share your experiences, opinions and questions on this article. Please
visit the PLW Community and leave your
comments.
|
previous
articles by this author
Jonathan
Goldman is
an internationally renowned authority on sound healing and is a pioneer
in the field of harmonics. He is the founder and director of the Sound
Healers Associations and President of Spirit Music. His award winning
recordings include "Chakra Chants," "The Lost Chord,"
"Ultimate Om" and "Holy Harmony." His highly acclaimed
books include Healing Sounds, Shifting Frequencies and The Lost Chord.
He has studied with masters of sound from both the scientific and
spiritual traditions and has been empowered by the Chant Master of
the Drepung Loseling Monastery to teach sacred Tibetan overtone chanting.
For over 20 years, Jonathan has helped awaken and empower others with
the ability of sound to heal and transform. He lectures and gives
workshops throughout the world. He lives in Boulder, Colorado with
his wife and son.