Healing with Sound: Part 1

Healing with Sound is one of the oldest and most primal ways of tapping into the Innate Healing System in order to help facilitate and maximize the power of a person to self-heal.

Today and next time I’ll delve into healing with sound, with a two-part article about it.

Quantum physics tells us that the universe is primarily made up of consciousness and information, and that the language of consciousness is vibrations and frequencies.

Matter emanates from consciousness, as quantum physics tells us – the technical name for matter is wavefunction.

A wavefunction is what matter is – part wave/vibration and part material form.

If at the heart of matter lies vibrations and frequencies, then at a basic level, matter communicates with itself through the primal sounds of vibrations and frequencies.

Ultrasounds are based on this principle. The ultrasound sends sound waves into the body, with a different frequency used, depending on which organ is being imaged. The organ picks up the frequency and through the process of resonance, the image of that organ is seen.

Resonance is the principle on which sound healing is based, just as resonance is the principle in which activating the innate healing system is based.

Resonance can open the body up in very powerful ways. The body can become like a tuning fork, reverbating in synchronous harmony with different sounds.

Different sounds resonate with different parts of the body, and a range of sounds can resonate with the entire body and find its way into the depths of the soul.

Sound healing is one of the oldest forms of healing known to humans. Sound healing was used in the ancient civilizations of China, Egypt, Greece and India. In the Bible, David played his harp to lift King Saul’s depression. Handel wrote his “Water Music” to help King George’s problems of memory loss and depression.

The Greek mathematician Pythagoras postulated that there was a rhythm of sounds that emanated throughout the cosmos, and that these sounds were in harmony with one another and with all of creation. He called this “The Harmony of the Spheres,” and it was his belief that as long as people were in harmony with the rhythms of the cosmos, they could then live in harmony with nature.

In modern times, sound healing is now widely used in Germany and Eastern Europe. Patients report a reduction in headaches, better sleep patterns, improved memory and concentration.

Hospitals are now using harpists to calm patients on the operating table after research found that the instrument eased pain. The sound and vibrations have also been shown to lower the heart rate, decrease blood pressure and combat heart disease. Research in the United States found that the range of vibrations emitted by the plucked strings affect the body’s nervous system.

At the Department of Coronary Care at St. Agnes Hospital, Baltimore, music ranks high on the list of modern day management of critical care patients. Its relaxing properties enable patients to get well faster by allowing them to accept their condition and treatment without excess anxiety.

In a study of 59,000 patients, 97% of them stated that music was a real help to them to relax in the postoperative situation and during surgery with local anesthesia.

To be continued next time…

Shamanism, Mysticism, and Quantum Borders of Reality: Part 3

Today I conclude this three-part fascinating article on Shamanism. If you missed the first two parts, here are the links:

Shamanism, Mysticism, and Quantum Borders of Reality: Part 1

Shamanism, Mysticism, and Quantum Borders of Reality: Part 2

The World of the Mystic and Shaman

Once we understand this basic concept, that the mind and consciousness transcend normal boundaries and spread beyond four-dimensional space-time, we can begin to understand more fully the world of the mystic, the world of nonordinary reality and the world of the shaman. Traditional cultures, unencumbered by the weightiness of analytical thinking, have always accepted these worlds. Westerners are just coming around.

Yet at the same time, taking these traditional worldviews and synthesizing them with progressive scientific thinking can only bode well for all. We can start to get a better understanding of how the shaman operates and how he or she effects a cure.

I have undergone shamanic journeying and have been awed by the insights gained from them. Are my insights mere fragments from a fertile imagination? I don’t think so. I tend to believe that I am tapping into the larger universal field of consciousness. All it takes to reach into that field is a shifting of the mind.

Trance Ritual

The shifting of the mind in shamanism and mysticism is generally achieved through some sort of trance ritual. Drumming, dancing, chanting, singing, meditating and other modalities are often used.

A Bar Mitzvah. I remember a few years ago, attending my nephew’s Bar Mitzvah. As the service went on, the rabbi and his assistants started speaking faster and faster, repeating the same phrases over and over, building the energy in the room into a crescendo.

At a certain point, as they continued with their ritual, there was a certain shift in energy and consciousness. A few people sighed and started crying; I could feel in myself my heart opening up and a sense of lightness within. Shortly after, the ceremony ended and the rabbi declared my nephew to be blessed.

Excitation of electrons

I believe that ceremony was a trance ritual. It worked up to a feverish pitch whereby the energy in the room palpably shifted. I have speculated that what they did was excite the vibrations of the electrons in the room until they were moving at a rate that allowed them to resonate more effectively with the quantum state. Since the quantum state is akin to the state of Spirit, in essence through the ritual they were able to make us closely connected to Spirit; or perhaps for a moment we became Spirit.

Perhaps this is the key to entering nonordinary states of reality. If one excites their electrons in whatever way one deems appropriate, they will then be further aligned with the quantum world. By being aligned with the quantum world, they will transition from the world of everyday reality to the quantum world of nonordinary reality, a reality that exists everywhere and anywhere, at a panoramic setting of 360 degrees.

The Path of the Shaman

Technicians of the Sacred

The ability to enter a nonordinary reality is the hallmark of the mystic. A shaman fits into this definition of a mystic, for a shaman readily traverses through various worlds as a great specialist in the human soul. The path the shaman takes is first and foremost spiritual; they are technicians of the sacred.

Shamanism is the oldest and most widespread method of healing with the imagination – over 20,000 years old. Shamans induce a state of mind that transcends ordinary reality, allowing them to access inner intuitive wisdom and bring it back for the benefit of others.

The Lama as Shaman

In Tibetan Buddhism, the Lama is the shaman, the psychic healer and guide of souls. Reciting chants from ritual texts from the secret books of Guru Rinpoche, this allows the Lama to enter into an altered state of consciousness, leaving his body behind to seek passage into other worlds, the hidden lands. He returns with treasures of knowledge and power and thus is able to restore lost souls to wholeness.

Maintaining a Foot in Both Worlds

Yet at the same time, just as quantum reality and everyday reality together form the entire panoramic view of reality; the shaman must keep a foot in both worlds to understand the fullness of human existence. The shamans who completely go off, who can’t keep operating in this world while they’re in an altered state, are considered fools or incompetents, or neophytes. The shamans in the Amazon who take ayahuasca and other extremely powerful hallucinogens can actually do surgery under the influence.

Trance Surgery

Speaking of performing surgery while in an altered state (this reminds me of a story I was recently told by a retired nurse about doctors in the hospital she used to work in who performed surgery while inebriated), in Brazil there are people who perform what is called trance surgery. To perform surgery while in a trance state is a very concrete representation of maintaining a foot in both worlds. Within a manner of minutes, the surgeon (who is generally not someone trained in Western medicine or surgical techniques) goes into a trance state in which their body is used by a possessing spirit or intelligent entity as a vehicle for its own medical purposes. Healing skills supposedly unknown to the healer are manifested during trance behaviors. These trance surgeons usually perform no rituals; they work with their eyes open, conversing with those present.

One of the most incredible aspects of these phenomena is that the surgical instruments are not sterilized, nor are the patients anesthetized. Yet accounts of infection and inflammation are rare, and patients generally appear to experience little or no pain and minimal bleeding. And furthermore, many patients experience either temporary or permanent cures of their ailments.

Sai Baba

A trance surgeon who practices in England, a man by the name of Stephen Turoff, claims that his inspiration comes from the Indian mystic Sai Baba. Sai Baba is considered a “national treasure of India” and at age 13 declared himself an avatar, an incarnation of God on earth. He has performed many miracles, which he calls mere calling cards, toys and tricks to gain our interest and to demonstrate the illusion of our physical bodies and the material world to which we are all so attached.

A psychiatrist who has witnessed Sai Baba first hand reports that Sai Baba has manifested objects out of thin air, resurrected the dead, and healed people of cancer. He writes, “there is no miracle known to humankind that Sai Baba has not performed.”

The Babalawo

To the Westerner, these stories seem preposterous. There is just no way something like this can be true, as it eludes rational and linear common sense.

Phillip John Neimark is one person who can vouch for the illusion of rationality and the sanctity of the sacred. A white, Jewish middle-age businessman who lives in Chicago, he made his first million at the age of 30; now he is also a high priest, or babalawo, in the Ifa religion. As Neimark tells it, “I was totally committed to the Cartesian, Newtonian universe and I lived my life absolutely on that basis. If you couldn’t prove God, He didn’t exist. In fact, I militantly attacked and dismissed any other paradigm.” His antique Jaguar had a license plate bearing Aristotle’s empirical dictum, A is A.

Through a series of life and spiritual crises, Neimark found himself inducted into the Ifa religion and became a high priest of the religion. Now he says “I don’t care how you do it. I don’t care how anybody does it. Just connect to that divine energy. Otherwise you will not get out of this lifetime nearly what you should.”

Into the Mystic

As Phillip John Neimark has shown, one doesn’t have to be of a particular culture or background to live the life of the shaman or mystic. All it takes is an innate understanding that the world is full of Spirit, and that Spirit controls the invisible forces of nature.

Who knows the mysterious ways of the invisible forces that control our lives? This is what the shaman, the mystic and the forward thinking scientist are all trying to ascertain.

Shamanism, Mysticism and Quantum Borders of Reality: Part 2

I continue now with the second article in this multipart series on shamanism. Yesterday was the first part, Shamanism, Mysticism and Quantum Borders of Reality: Part 1.

Dreams and the Soul

Westerners do not fully understand the realm of the psyche, the soul or the transcendent; to many it is a deep, dark chasm that is best maintained with a padlock. It is better to sweep it under the rug, to not delve into it and understand it. It may rear its head in dreams, but because Westerners are not sensitized to their dreams, it will be quickly discarded.

Many traditional cultures look to their dreams for guidance, to help them shape the lives of their people. Central to the practices of many traditional cultures is the pre-dawn ritual of dream sharing. Dreams are shared and used by the entire community and individuals dream not only for themselves but also for the community as a whole. In their dreams they will find access to forces that are not revealed in everyday awareness. They believe that something akin to a soul-body leaves their physical body to travel within a parallel world.

Traditional cultures use their dreams to develop both individually and collectively, whereas Westerners have no similar protocol, as the dreams of Westerners don’t develop with age; instead their dreams stay at the level of a child. One member of an Amazon tribe said about Westerners, “I didn’t know people in the north dreamed.”

And to traditional cultures, it is understood that people are not the only ones who dream. The Bugi, who have inhabited the coasts of Sulawesi since before recorded time, sail in large wooden-hulled schooners with enormous black sails. These ships are called prahu. Prahus have no motors, navigational equipment, nor modern technology of any kind, yet they sail great distances. Their belief is that every prahu has a dream and that this dream exists before the ship is built. The prahu builders will enter the dream of the prahu to see where it will sail and what storms it will encounter, so they know how to focus their work and what parts of the prahu will need special attention.

Westerners consider the waking state the only reality and dreams to be unreal and unimportant. Traditional cultures believe the dream state to have greater potential for understanding and spiritual progress than the so-called waking state, and both states to be equally real or unreal.

In Tibetan Buddhism there is a form of yoga called Tibetan dream yoga. It consists of four stages:

1. Comprehending the nature of the dream (i.e., that it is a dream and thus, a construction of the mind)

2. Practicing the transformation of dream content until one experientially understands that all of the contents of dreaming consciousness can be changed by will and that dreams are essentially unstable

3. Realizing that the sensory experiences of waking consciousness are just as illusory as dreams and that, in a sense, “it’s all a dream.”

4. Meditating on the “thatness” of the dream state, which results in union with a “clear light.”

The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science

Logical Empiricism

Within Western society there are certain precepts, which we can call metaphysical foundations. These are assumptions of the way the world operates that are based not on research or scientific theory, yet are neither articulated nor brought into question during the course of modern research. These assumptions do not reside within the material world as such, nor can they be proven by empirical experiments, but they form the ground out of which all our conceptual ideas about the physical world reside.

Like Ken Wilber’s Flatland, which you read about in Part 1, these metaphysical foundations are based on the premise that if you can’t experience it with your senses, it doesn’t exist.

The most important of the metaphysical foundations are objectivism, positivism and reductionism. These lead to the assumption of logical empiricism, which is the belief in the premise that the basic stuff of the universe is what physicists study: namely, matter and physical energy – ultimately, “fundamental particles,” their associated fields and interrelationships.

Anomalies

Yet as science studies things large and small, from the depths of the submicroscopic to the infinite expanse of the cosmos (and everything in between), there are areas that do not easily fit into these metaphysical assumptions. These are such concepts as non-local causality, self-organizing systems, nonlinear dynamics, turbulence, consciousness, synchronicity, superpositioning, and more. There is even some evidence that the speed of light is capable of going faster than what Einstein has postulated to be an absolute.

Some would point to all these areas as anomalies, statistical warts that fall outside the normal purview. But the reality is that these so-called anomalies are not so much demonstrations of shortfalls in our knowledge of mechanisms as much as indicators of the inadequacy of the present day scientific approach and the metaphysical foundations and principles it adheres to.

The Incorporation of Quantum Thought

When we extend our borders of everyday reality to include quantum thought, much of the anomalous areas then begin to make sense and can be explained through scientific terms. Science can then be used to help us probe deeper, to question, to analyze, to criticize, to synthesize. Instead of a science that thinks in an exclusionary manner, quick to dismiss that which doesn’t fit into its narrow paradigm, we can have a science that can think in an inclusive manner, that can help to explain things which seem to be beyond comprehension.

Zombies.
For instance, in the country of Haiti, in the year 1962, a man by the name of Clairvius Narcisse died. Eighteen years later, in 1980, Narcisse was found walking in a marketplace, claiming to be a zombie. There was no doubt that he had died, nor was there any doubt that he was who he said he was. Because of the publicity surrounding Narcisse, other Haitians surfaced with similar tales, also claiming to be zombies.

Scientists from the U.S. researched the matter and determined that Voodoo priests and sorcerers created herbal decoctions that could paralyze a person’s central nervous system; after the person was buried the priest would come and give them the antidote, which would revive them, yet keep them in a drugged state. The priest then would give periodic doses of the decoction to the person to maintain the drugged state. Thus the person perceived of themselves as zombies, controlled by someone they considered being their master.

360 degrees.
Not all scenarios can be explained so readily; yet there can still be open-minded scientific discussions on them. As long as science starts with the assumption that reality goes far beyond our senses, then our metaphysical foundations can be much broader. With the understandings of superpositioning, coherence and decoherence, non-local causality, and nonlinear dynamics, the scope, depth and breadth of science can virtually cover all areas considered anomalous.

What these modern sciences tell us is that true reality exhibits a 360-degree nature. What this means is that reality exists twofold: both in a linear fashion, neatly laid out from past to present to future; and in a nonlinear fashion, with the past, present and future all around us, occurring at all times, in many dimensions.

Superpositioning has shown us that in the quantum realm, electrons exist in all possible states at all times and communicate to one another about their positions. Although in our macroscopic world the electron takes just one position of density, the communication continues, non-locally, between the electrons of the macroscopic world and the quantum world.

The electrons of the quantum world inform the electrons of the macroscopic world that it is possible to continue to move and be in many places at once.

Gravity and thermodynamics offset this information by informing the macroscopic electrons that they cannot move and that they are dense and absolute. Yet what the macroscopic electrons do, in its attempt to mirror the quantum electrons, is follow a path of nonlinear dynamics, of creating fractals and strange attractors.

In this way, the electrons of our everyday world open the floodgates of uncertainty, to show that even in our everyday reality there are movements that happen that are beyond linear mathematical formulation. Thus, all around us, at all times, exists a world of each and every possibility.

Non-local Causality

Electrons talk in an indigenous language of wavelengths and frequencies in the superpositioned state. And as I said above, the communication continues even when electrons transition into density. The ability for electrons to communicate across boundaries of space and time is considered non-local causality.

Even consciousness follows these rules. It is a quantum system that decoheres into density. Each of us has our own mind, with its own level of consciousness – this is the result of quantum decoherence into density. At this level we experience ourselves as separate from others.

Yet at the root of our individual consciousness is a non-local mind, a universal consciousness, in which our thoughts are ultimately connected into a universal mind. It is most probable that the electrons of local and non-local consciousness, or individual and universal mind, communicate in the same indigenous language as all other electrons.

As physicist Arthur Eddington said, “The stuff of the world is mind-stuff…The mind-stuff is not spread in space and time…Recognizing that the physical world is entirely abstract and without ‘actuality’ apart from its linkage to consciousness, we restore consciousness to the fundamental position.”

To be continued next time…

The Physics of Relationships

I continue on today with this series on Relationships, Love and Sex with an essay and poems guest written by Susan Jefts.

Susan has written a few articles and poems for the Low Density Lifestyle website. Her most recent article was Go to Where Your Spirit is Invited to Open Up.

Susan is a poet who lives in Saratoga Springs, NY. She runs writing groups in therapeutic and community settings using poetry as a tool for exploring life issues and healing.

Susan teaches writing and advises students for Empire State College and has had her poetry published in several journals and books regionally and throughout the country, including Big City Lit, Parnassus Literary Journal, The Hudson River Anthology and Metroland, among others.

Her website is www.saratogapoetryroom.com.

Talking Physics With Friends on a Winter Evening
We talked at the pub tonight about quantum physics. How,
in the nonlocal realm of pure potential everything is happening
at once and we can choose what we wish to experience now.
It’s true, I’ve seen it happen. Only I wish I could make it happen
more, like if you were to tell me what you were really thinking,
I would choose that, or maybe I could choose to know what
what you’re thinking. And while I’m at it, I would fast forward –
no, I would choose to hear our next conversation right now,
or yesterday. This is how it works in the quantum world,
and I believe it in my other mind, and really in this one too.
I just need to become more conscious, focus my attention,
increase my capacity for perception so I can step into one of
those other dimensions, lean down into your room, listen
to the way you think and see the way you feel. Then I would
know what I think of you and if I want you to kiss me
and if you want to kiss me or dance around me like a stray
electron for the rest of our earthly lives. Which brings to mind
the question of anticipation and the difference between
that state and the state of occurring. Are they one in the same?
If so, why do they feel so different? This now is different
than that now. Kiss me now and I’ll prove it.

Almost

Sometimes,
when the evening is slow and tight
like a long jazz riff, all possible lives
and outcomes dance in a jar of night
where the saxophone relaxes
and the swish of a drum
and low hum of a voice
are the only things still going.
A hush
that won’t quit, an almost
seduction, almost enough
to close the stretch of miles,
the long stretch of miles,
between the places
where two people live.

The Poetics of Relationship

Lately, when I think about relationships I think of complexity. If there is anything I’ve learned about relationships it is that they are not meant to be completely understood at an intellectual level, but that their complexity can be embraced at a soul level.

When I was younger I preferred, like a lot us I suppose, to keep things simple or at least pretend they were. I hadn’t learned how to respond to, or perhaps even recognize, complexity as the opportunity it was. I hadn’t yet learned that it was part of the whole idea and that the contradictory, paradoxical aspect of people and relationships are what makes them interesting, albeit challenging, and if embraced can lead to the greatest intimacy.

I can say I’ve grown closer over the years to accepting and even loving complexity in relationships, be they friendships, sexual relationships, work related, or familial ones. I can’t say it’s always fun; it takes courage to, first of all, face how you are really feeling and then share this with someone in a way they can hear. Then if you are lucky you start to break down the artifices of your protective outer layers to reach each other’s hearts. You don’t always know if the other person wants the same challenge, but I think it’s worth trying. The alternative is often a half hearted, half conscious facsimile of a relationship.

At a writers conference a couple summers ago in Vermont, I was blessed to have a poetry teacher whose background was both physics and poetry. He was adept at weaving together ideas from both fields, as well as Japanese pottery, Navaho rug weaving, and many other areas. He told us that ‘plex’ from complexity, as in complexity theory, means to braid. He liked to apply this idea to poetry, where there is often a weaving together of two narratives.

These narratives, with their metaphors and imagery, often seem oddly juxtaposed or even contradictory like the layers of a person’s psyche or the intricate strands of a rela-tionship. You don’t always know where things are going, but you go anyway. The author Thomas Moore writes in his book, Soul Mates, that relationships, especially deep love relationships, are “an evocation of one of life’s greatest mysteries, the weaving together of many different strands of soul.”

The process of weaving together seemingly unrelated ideas and metaphors does not always make rational sense and can feel disconcerting, but it usually leads to a much richer poem, or relationship. As its images are woven together, they become something else altogether. The words take you to a deeper and more resonant place.

Some poems, like some relationships, go a step further and make unexpected leaps. They tap into what the poet Li Young Lee calls universe mind, or the hum beneath, and travel through time and space to a place that encompasses what came before but at the same time moves beyond it. If we can accept the more mysterious aspects of a person or a relationship, the ones that cannot be explained or even understood, we just might get somewhere amazing.

People, like poems, are full of paradox and uncertainty. This doesn’t mean we should accept frequent erratic or immature behavior, especially if it is dishonoring. We have a tendency, though, to wish that relationships were simple and predictable. And at times, thankfully, they can be. At least for a while. But if we can embrace the uncertainty factor, and know that no dynamic system stays the same for long, we will gain much that we wouldn’t otherwise. A well crafted poem becomes a container that can hold and make meaning, even beauty, of paradox. A well crafted, loving and soulful relationship can do the same thing.