THE SPIRITUAL POWER OF MUSIC #4

"The secret codes of nature, like D.N.A and other models

in the natural world are similar to musical notes 

through which every component of creation sings 

and plays its part in the cosmic harmony." Rev Ginsburg

Music can be

Happy/Joyous, Healing/Spiritual, Sad/Mournful, Romantic,

Inspirational, Martial, Patriotic or Demonic.

In other words - creating either relaxation or agitation.

"Beautiful music is the art of the prophets that can calm

the agitation of the soul. It is one of the most magnificent,

delightful presents God has given us." Martin Luther

Music can do many things to our inner beings

and we have to be careful in how we select it.

Be careful of what you taste and where you immerse.

The Nazis used it to torture Jews,

the military to march soldiers to their deaths in war,

others to court and woo prospective mates ...

 and all shades of light and dark in-between ...

 Schoenberg, Boulez and Cage had different ideas about tonality

which have influenced where we are today. In fact they applauded no tonality at all.

John Cage in the early 90's called it 

"... purposeful purposeless - to have absolutely no organization." 

and encouraged being emancipated from the tyranny

of meaning and order. He and others have had a huge influence on world music today.

"I am conscious of having removed all traces of a past aesthetic. I am cured of

the delusion that the artists aim is to create beauty." Arnold Schoenberg 1920

and musical narcissism...

"Once the past has been gotten out of the way, one may think only of oneself."

Pierre Boulez

"Tonality died somewhere around the time that Nietzsche's God died."

John Adams

Vagn, Holmboe and John Adams rebelled against these "modern" ideas and stuck to

tonal music, the music that connected them to Pythagoras and Saint Clement.

They are a reflection of a musical recovery of our time but there is still much opposition

as in Heavy Metal and in Rap, especially depending on the words that are used.

Christian Rock also has arisen in opposition to this.

At the end of the day music is a part of the 'mathematics' of God, and

tonality, for our maximum benefit, should conform to these laws and not 

"purposeful purposeless" 

Nevertheless, formless chaos often seems to have replaced essence and is a reflection of

the disturbance of what is going on inside of us and around our planet. 

The right musical vibration can help us return to our true Selves.

432 Hz is said to be rooted in musical history and has been linked without real proof to

geometry, science, architecture, the Egyptian pyramids, Stonehenge, mystical events

and other phenomena. It is also said to shift consciousness, soothe and reduce anxiety,

heighten perception, increase mental clarity and align one

with the heartbeat of the universe.

Whatever the case it has been replaced by 440Hz, now the standard pitch around the

world. 

However, 432 is making a comeback especially in sound healing, therapeutic work

and meditation. 

Others have warned against imposing a single system based on it having

a superior vibration. Its not the pitch of the note but one's intention for the music

which will prevail. It's all a question of the skill used in releasing that intention.

Conspiracy theorists believe that Goebbels and the Nazis promoted 440 Hz as part of a

plan to warp the consciousness of the masses. However, it was in use in Italy, Holland,

England, France and Germany long before the Nazi regime. 

Although this theory has been discredited there is no doubt that the Nazis used music to

torture their victims especially the Jews. Forced singing of German songs was

accompanied by torture meted out in freezing weather.

One labor battalion called the "Singing Horses" was harnessed to a heavily loaded

wheel barrow which they had to pull as they sang at the top of their voices while straining

or they were beaten. 

Inmates also had to sing while being asphyxiated and play the violin while being tortured.

Others - fully knowing their fate - were forced to play calming music as new inmates

entered the death camps.

Musicologist Ruth Hacohen has called it the 

music libel against the Jews." 

It was the intention of the SS to rob Jews and Jewish musicians

of the only vital resource that they had for their survival.

Music can be healthful, enhance immune function and positive

emotional states; the wrong kind - the opposite.

 

THE SPIRITUAL POWER OF MUSIC #3

... and the earth was without form and void and

darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the

Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters ... Genesis

Isaac Luria the great Kabbalist described Kabbalah's equivalent,

of the Big Bang - Tzimtzum or Contraction.

The Creator inserted His/Her presence for the sake of creation.

This caused a "shattering of vessels"containing holy sparks that were held in shards

and needed to be released in order to heal the world.

Sacred music is one effective way of releasing these sparks.

"A river arose out of Eden forming Four Rivers and Four Winds.

They joined to form a singular spirit which animates all creation." The Zohar

These Four Winds, from the breath of the Divine, animated all creation in vibration,

logos and maybe sound and song ... In Hebrew the word Ruach means spirit, wind, breath,

vibration, sound.

"What is God, the breath within the breath." Kabir

The Zohar states that God animated the Still Beings, Growing , Wild and Talking Beings

with "Four Winds" (Spirit, Breath, Ruach (Hebrew,) Prana (Yoga,) Moya (Zulu.)

"The Spirit that moves in all things." Native American wisdom

Each Being is animated with its own particular "Wind" or vibration.

Without Wind, Prana, Ruach, Moya, Spirit there could be no sound.

Sound was implicit at the beginning of creation.

"Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe,

wings to the mind, flight to the imagination

and charm and gaiety to life and to everything." Plato

The right kind of music enhances our parasympathetic nervous system creating a relaxation

response with positive affects on our nervous system as well as spiritual and heart coherence.

The opposite can be true in the case of military and other songs or music such

as heavy metal which can enhance our sympathetic flight or fight response.

Everything in the multiverse is vibration and electromagnetic energy, making music and

sound fundamental to our spiritual reality.

CYMATICS AND SACRED GEOMETRY

Ernst Chladni first showed how tiny particles arrange themselves in patterns

when exposed to music on a receptive, metal, flat surface.

 Hans Jenny in the 60's expanded on this work. Experiments showed patterns in water

as well. You can find the visuals on You Tube resembling shapes in nature

such as;

a spiders web, a millipede a tortoise's shell or a leopard's skin - sacred geometry.

These forms are repeatable and not random.

If you pass sine waves through a water medium patterns appear and change if you

change the sound frequency. 

The higher the frequency, the more complex the shape.

Emoto's work on frozen water demonstrates how the

crystalline structure of water changes with the different emotions of love and fear. 

Love in his experiments was contained notably, amongst other stimulants ..., in

classical music. These all created exquisite crystalline structures.

Fear, including Heavy Metal music did the opposite, creating ugly images.

 Low frequencies form simpler patterns than higher frequencies. Low frequencies

are more commonly associated with fear as in the threat response and in the aggressive

tone of the human voice. A growl is a threat response (as is the sound of a

Harley Davidson, the sound of which makes a motorist wary.) Since our cells are 80% water,

think of what sound or music as well as thought, intention, emotion and feeling

can do to our bodies, the cells of which are 80% water. 

Such is the power of sound and music be it dark or light.

Since we are all mostly vibrational, empty space with orbiting subatomic particles

rotating around a nucleus, sound may find a way

to insinuate itself into this empty space between these particles,

to align our vibration or not..

Credo Mutwa the famous Zulu sangoma or sanusi (high prophet) taught that one could cure any disease with the right sound.

Patterns also seen in water droplets exposed to high frequencies in other

Cymatic experiments demonstrated; octahedrons, tetrahedrons, hexagons,

and the geometrical patterns also seen in plants and animals

- Sacred Geometry. 

This might confirm how important complex sounds combined with sacred letters in words

were in creating the universe.

Entheogens contained in mind-altering plants also demonstrate sacred geometry.

The hexagon of the San Pedro cactus which contains Mescaline.

Below, connecting the "dots" - the cross-section of the vision vine of the Amazon which

contains Ayahuasca. During Ayahuasca ritual, sacred songs call Icaros are essential

in driving the experience.

Even the grooves in Peyote, sacred to the Native Americans, resembles the six pointed star.

The hexagon is the symbol of the heart chakra indicating that these plant entheogens

especially when combined with sound have the capacity to open our hearts

and give us a deeper vision.

The sounds in nature may be the closest thing we can experience

to the music of the spheres;

the soft fascinations of the wind rustling in the trees and a babbling brook and more..

"This song of the waters is audible to every ear, but there is other music in these hills, by no means audible to all. On a still night, when the campfire is low and the Pleiades have climbed over rimrocks, sit quietly and listen, and think hard of everything you have seen and tried to understand..." Aldo Leopold

It suggested that possibly the Creator "sang" the creation into being with complex sound vibrations.

For those interested in more check out Cymatics, Chladni, Jenny and others on You Tube.

THE SPIRITUAL POWER OF MUSIC #2

(With apologies for Googles spacing.)

Akasha in Hindu philosophy is ether - the substrate of the quality of sound. 

It is the one pervading substance - the primordial Ohm, the root of vibration.

The concept of 

Nada (sound or vibration) - Brahma 

means the universe was created from the energy of sound. 

Sanskrit letters are sacred and were part of this creative vibration.

This concept is similar in Kabbalah where the Hebrew letters are considered sacred.

Both traditions treat sound, letters and vibration as fundamental to creative reality.

The Celts believed that the world was sung into existence.

They called the sacred tune of the universe the Oran Mo'r.

"Quiet— Eternal Quiet. Not even the sound of the restless, stirring, dark

waters could be heard.

Then, a great spiraling strain of Melody moved across the endless waters.

Subdued at first, then quickly gathering momentum until it reached a great crescendo.

And, then, there was Life! But the Melody did not stop. It continued its song,

filling all of Creation with its Divine harmony. 

And so it continues today, for all those who listen." Frank Mills

John said; "In the begiining was the word..."

This Logos was also sound and vibration. Sacred letters and words combined with harmony.

Even for those who think of the Bible as being mythology it is worth noting

how much it has to say about the power of sound and song.

In Exodus the Israelites trembled as trumpets sounded from Mount Sinai before Moses

went up the mountain to receive the ten commandments.

In the book of Joshua it was the blowing of the rams' horns by the priests

carrying the Arc of the Covenant that caused the wall of the fortified city to fall down.

Singing and playing musical instruments in the tabernacle and later the temple

was the duty of Levite priests and priestesses. 

Levite harpists were routinely called upon by the prophets to enable prophecy

especially with Isaiah, Jeremiah and Elisha.

King David's psalms were originally in song and included instruments ...The book of Revelations also refers to the "seven trumpet agues" that will occur at the endof this age at the return of Jesus to earth.

"The Music of the Spheres."

There still is an ongoing singing of the stars as Mills says;

"And so it continues today, for all those who listen."

The Chaldeans were apparently the first to say that all the heavenly bodies joined together to create music as they orbited space. The San Kalahari Bushmen also could hear this sound - as also stated in the Zohar. Pythagoras was apparently the first of the Greek philosophers to theorize that the sun, moon and planets emit their own "hum" as they orbit which reflect celestial sounds imperceptible to most human ears. Plato agreed with him and also assumed there was a numerical component to them.

"There is geometry in the humming of strings. There is music in the spacing of the spheres. Number is the within of all things." Pythagoras 

 "Pythagoras alone of mortals is said to have heard this harmony ... If our hearts' were as chaste and as snowy as Pythagoras, our ears would resound and be filled with that supremely lovely music of the wheeling stars." John Milton

If the sun, the moon and all these huge bodies are rotating it is possible that they do generate sound. It is also likely that since we are born with this subtle music from light years away in our ears. However, now we may no longer be able to hear it or even know it is there - unlike the Bushmen who are as pure as Pythagoras. They all previously benefited from having little noise pollution. Pythagoras believed that not only the stars but all creatures and objects have energetic signatures which could be translated into numbers, fractions or geometric structures and that the Creator "geometrized" the universe in sound vibrations.This would fit with the idea that music is a part of the 'mathematics' of God.

If you amplify the frequency of sound the structure of matter can change.

Sound has the power to do many amazing things:

Playing the right frequency of sound can

cause a wine glass to move and even break apart.

Levitate and rotate objects

Boil water

Create light and heat

Drill through stone and metal

Destroy cancer and pathogens

Heal

 

THE POWER OF MUSIC ON BODY, MIND AND SPIRIT

# 1

I still believe in things I can't see ... I believe in things I can feel: Music Love and God." Lina Loy

AFFECT ON AGING

Dr. Langer more than three decades ago showed that if you turn back the clock psychologically, this can tempoarily effect aging. A group of men between 70 and 80 years old relived a week in 1959 in a building refurbished to fit the era. The experiment included listening to the music of that time. viewing shows and movies from that decade on black and white T.V. and discussing those current events. After the week it was noted that their memory, physical strength, vision and hearing improved.

DEMENTIA

Recent F.M.R.I. research showed that listening and singing songs that were personalized and relevant to the musical memory of dementia patients had the effect of stimulating brain areas that were relatively undamaged by the disease. The music animated those with dementia and reduced anxiety, agitation and depression. It also enable loved ones to communicate with them more easily. 

Musical memories were preserved because many areas were spared from the amyloid deposits in the brain. Music could take varied, other pathways through the brain. Although music seemed to anchor the patients back into reality there was little affect of this treatment on the general condition of the patients.

The late Glen Campbell developed Altzheimers but was still capable of giving performances with the help of his devoted family. The audience did not seem to care when he sometimes had to be reminded about the lyrics. Musical memories seem to be retained in many patients who otherwise have severe cognitive dysfunction.

Music has also been used to treat traumatic brain injury, Parkinson's disease, P.T.S.D. and other brain disorders. Motzart's piano sonata in D major apparently decreased epileptic seizures. 

INTELLIGENCE IN CHILDREN

Motzart's music may not have beneficial effects on childrens' spatial reasoning abilities (The Mozart effect) but any positive effects rather appeared to be due to "enjoyment arousal" and also possible with other music, and others positive stimuli as well.

Music can make children smarter but the effects are temporary and non-specific and no different to other methods of stimulating their brains.

However, children who become musicians have more neural connections, higher spatial intelligence, a more symmetrical brain with a larger corpus callosum and higher test and I.Q. scores. This may be akin to learning another language. Musicians also have an enhanced auditory system with a greater ability for identifying pitch and recognizing musical pieces.

MUSIC AS MEDITATION

The right kind of music also has the potential to create heart and brain Coherence by facilitating the Parasympathetic nervous system. This can override stress and the negative emotions that arise from a Sympathetic flight of fight response. Coherence (balance, harmony, equanimity) is a positive energy or vibration which spreads beyond its immediate environment. 

Music can also be healthful, enhance immune function and create positive emotional states.

 The wrong kind of music can do the opposite.

With music, hidden and repressed emotions can be released. If one listens to music with a tempo slower that the heart rate, the heart rate slows down.

The Heart Math institute has extended this concept to the idea of Coherence of heart rhythms in relationship to Heart Rate Variability (H.R.V.)  Heart rate Coherence occurs when the Parasympathetic and Sympathetic nervous systems are in balance. 

According to the Ancestors...

The mind controls the heart.

According to the Heart Math Institute the heart sends more signals to the brain than the other way around. Heart Coherence has the potential to create emotional balance in the brain and can occur with any meditative technique, active or passive, mental or physical and with selected music. We know how critical physical exercise is for both heart and brain function.

 

Music can do many things to our inner beings and we have to be careful in how we select it. The Nazis used it to torture Jews, the military to march soldiers to their deaths in war, others to court and woo prospective mates ...

 and all shades of light and dark in-between ...

Chassidic and African wisdom teach that song is also the most powerful way to pray and also to mourn.

"There are three ways of mourning; with tears, with silence and with song. That with song is the most powerful."

"With song one can open the gates of heaven." Chassidic sayings

"We pray by singing and dancing." African proverb

The Safe Sound Protocol was developed by Dr. Porges for children who have suffered severe abuse. This particular sound vibration facilitated their social engagement by means of high frequency auditory stimuli which simulated the frequencies of the human voice. Sadly, because of abuse their ears have been primed to detect low frequency threatening, predatory sounds only and tune out the more healthful, heartful, human ones.