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Healing With Sound: Echoes of a Lost Art.
(Article By
Alex Whitaker, 2012)
Abstract:
Modern experiments with sound have shown that sound can be
beneficial in the recovery of patients. Music has been shown to
beneficial to us even before we are born and ultrasound is
commonly used today to assist recovery of various ailments
including repairing broken bones.
(3) The traditional
resistance to 'alternative' healing methods is being challenged
by the results of experiments involving sound, and more
interestingly, research at several prominent prehistoric sites
appear to show that the connection between sound and healing
dates back into prehistory.
The
wealth of modern clinical research documenting the usefulness for music therapy
is impressive (6), (7).
It has been identified as a valid complementary and alternative
medicine by the National Institutes of Health and many hospitals
and other organizations. Music therapy has been used with success in
cases of cancer, schizophrenia, dementia, cardiovascular
diseases, somatic issues, anxiety, pain, post-surgery recovery,
eating disorders, depression, multiple sclerosis, deafness
tinnitus, and a host of other physical, emotional, and
psychological issues. Music therapy during prenatal care and
during labour has been shown to be a valuable addition to other
therapies like breathing exercises and specific exercises. In
hospitals, music therapy is often used to help alleviate pain
and increase post-surgical healing. It is often used in
conjunction with anaesthesia and pain medication. It
has been shown to be dramatically effective in elevating mood,
alleviating depression, inducing sleep and in general,
decreasing hospital stays (Hillecke et al. 2005).
Wachiuli et al. (2007) found in a controlled study on 40
volunteers that subjects who engaged in recreational
music-making using drumming protocol had better moods, lower
stress-related cytokine interleukin-10 levels, and higher
natural killer cell activity compared with the control group.
These markers of course, translate to better immune system
response, suggesting greater disease prevention.
(4)
Although we look upon healing with sound as a relatively modern
realisation, there is a strong tradition of healing around the
ancient world, and one which appears to reach back into
prehistory.
Perhaps one of
the most easily recognised means of using sound for therapy is
through chanting. The
use of chanting mantras for healing can be seen in
the Rig-Veda, one of the oldest texts in the world.
The Indian Raga system originated in the
Vedic period (Rig Vedic Period) which is
believed to precede the pre historic Indus
Valley Civilisation. Indian tradition
has a strong emphasis on the power of
sound and intonation and the science of
sound was very important for use in every
condition of life in healing, in teaching,
in evolving and accomplishment. The Vedic
chants and music were intoned with utmost
care as each intonation and inflection of
voice could have beneficial or adverse
effects. The Vedas are the oldest unbroken
form of oral tradition in the world (dating from at least 1500
BC) (8),
they are considered imperfect in their modern written form, and
the insistence on learning the perfect notation and
pronunciation of each word lies in the belief that the words
have a power of their own. Mantras are chanted for knowledge,
devotion and wisdom and others for spiritual and physical
purification. Vedic texts, in fact, describe transcending sound
as the pre-eminent means for attaining higher, spiritual
consciousness.
In the West,
the first record of the awareness of the power of sound for
healing comes from
Pythagoras of Samos (c. 580 BC), who was a philosopher,
mathematician and a musician. He became aware of the profound
effect that music had on the senses and emotions and declared that the soul could be purified from its irrational
influences by solemn songs sung to the accompaniment of the
lyre (similar in principle to the Vedas)He is reputed to have been able to soothe animals and
people and is considered by many to be the founder of music
therapy. He said of it:
'Music
directly imitates the passions or states of the soul...when
one listens to music that imitates a certain passion, he
becomes imbued with the same passion; and if over a long
time he habitually listens to music that rouses ignoble
passions, his whole character will be shaped to an ignoble
form' (1)
Plato (c 427 BC
- 348 BC) said of music in 'The Republic':
"Musical training is a more potent instrument than any other,
because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places
of the soul, on which they mightily fasten, imparting grace..."
(III, S401e).
In addition, Homer prescribed music to counteract mental
anguish, and Asclepiades of Bithynia is said to have prescribed
Phrygian music for sciatica and other illnesses. Democritus
prescribed various flute melodies, and the respected Roman
physician Galen applied music to his healing repertoire. Among
other therapies, Galen prescribed a "medical bath"
inclusive of flute song for nerve pain.
(4)
We are left
with little doubt that the concept of healing with sound is not
as new as it might at first seem, in fact, there is much
evidence to suggest that it goes back even further that the
Vedic system (c. 1,500 BC), as recent research on certain
prehistoric megaliths has revealed a connection with sound and
healing
Palaeo-acoustics.
Following the
2008 dig at Stonehenge, two archaeologists concluded that
Stonehenge was the 'Lourdes' of prehistory. Perhaps interesting
then that the same site was recently recognised a few years
later for creating auditory sensations.
Article:
BBC. April, 2008. 'Stonehenge: The Healing Stones'.
Professor
Timothy Darvill and Professor Geoff Wainwright think Stonehenge
was a site of healing. "The whole purpose of Stonehenge is that
it was a prehistoric Lourdes," says Wainwright. "People came
here to be made well."
Darvill and
Wainwright believe the smaller bluestones in the centre of the
circle, rather than the huge sarsen stones on the perimeter,
hold the key to the purpose of Stonehenge. The bluestones were
dragged 250km from the mountains of southwest Wales using Stone
Age technology. That's some journey, and there must have been a
very good reason for attempting it. Darvill and Wainwright
believe the reason was the magical, healing powers imbued in the
stones by their proximity to traditional healing springs.
The bones
that have been excavated from around Stonehenge appear to back
the theory up. "There's an amazing and unnatural concentration
of skeletal trauma in the bones that were dug up around
Stonehenge," says Darvill. "This was a place of pilgrimage for
people... coming to get healed."
(Quick-link
to Article)
Article:
HeritageDaily. March 7, 2012. 'Stonehenge Based on Magical
Sensory Illusion'.
'An
independent researcher in California said the layout of the
stones correspond to the regular spacing of loud and quiet
sounds created by acoustic interference when two instruments
played the same note continuously .... He recruited volunteers,
blindfolded them, and led them in a circle around two
instruments playing the same note continuously. He then asked
participants to sketch out the shape of any obstruction they
thought lay between them and the instrument. Some drew circles
of pillars, and one volunteer added lintels ... If these people
were dancing in a circle around two musicians, and were
experiencing the loud and soft region of an interference
pattern, they would have felt that there were these massive
objects arranged in a ring'..
(Quick-link
to Article)
The two articles above raise the question of just how
much sound was employed in prehistoric times, and for what purposes.
The archaeology at Stonehenge presents an image of people coming
from all over Europe with their sick/dead, and even today the area
surrounding Stonehenge has the appearance of little more than an
extended burial landscape. Perhaps relevant then that research on
the acoustics of stone circles (Stonehenge in particular), combined
with the large number of sites which appear to show a preference for 110
MHz (current experiments are showing that the specific
frequency range around 110 Hz tends to stimulate a certain
electrical brain rhythm associated with particular trance-like
states.
(9) (Time & Mind 1:1, March 2008), which suggests that
this was an intentional design in the megaliths.
One of the most intriguing aspects
of Stonehenge has been the purpose of now famous 'Preseli
Bluestones', which were transported over 140 miles to the site from
near Gors Fawr in Wales. The
longstanding debate over the reason why stone was chosen from such a
distance, when 'sarsen' stone was locally available, appears to have
been met with an answer in relation to this topic, as this
particular stone has a longstanding association with both healing
and sound. Bluestone - or a relatively high proportion of them
(perhaps as much as ten percent) have the usually rare property of
being �musical�. That is, they can ring like a bell or gong, or
resound like a drum, when struck with a small hammer-stone, instead
of the dull clunking sound rock-on-rock usually makes. That this
property has been noted locally down the generations is shown by the
�Maenclochog� (�Ringing stones�) village place-name in the Preseli
area'.
(2)
When we add this information to that provided by
Geoffrey of Monmouth, who made a note
in his history of Britain in 1215 AD that the 'Medicinal power of
the stones was stimulated by pouring water over them'.
(10).
We can be sure that the Bluestones have
had a longstanding tradition for being used for curative purposes.
It is noted that
the oldest human remains found by
Parker Pearson�s team date to around 3,030 B.C., at approximately
the same time as the arrival of the first bluestones (Stonehenge
II).
Elsewhere in
Europe, the same auditory effect was being reproduced by other
megalithic builders. OTSF
tested the pattern of resonance in several of the ancient Maltese
temples and found it occurred at a frequency of 110 or 111
hertz�within the range of a low male voice. This was consistent with
research published in 1996 by the Princeton Engineering Anomalies
Research group, which found that some ancient megalithic chambers in
the U.K. and Ireland sustained a strong resonance at a frequency of
between 95 and 120 hertz. Research by Dr. Ian A. Cook and colleagues
from UCLA, published in the journal Time and Mind in 2008, used
electroencephalography (EEG) to monitor the brain activity of
volunteers while they listened to different frequencies of sound.
They found that at 110 hertz, the brain activity suddenly changed.
The section of the brain responsible for language processing became
relatively deactivated, and the areas related to mood, empathy and
social behaviour �switched on.�
(11)
In the Hypogeum on Malta, it has been
noted that sound reverberates at 110 Hz, and there is a hole in the
wall (called the oracle hole), from which a male voice will
reverberate throughout the internal chambers. In the same chamber
there is an 'amplification channel' built into the ceiling. While it
is not clear that the Hypogeum chambers were originally intended
for, it is evident that the science of sound was both understood and
employed in the construction. This same science appears to have left
its mark on some of the most prolific megaliths in Europe, and it is
tempting to speculate on the idea that the large numbers of
Bird-bone flutes found from the Palaeolithic onwards might also be
somehow related to therapeutic purposes.
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