The Science of Sound Healing

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"There are two ways to view your life--as though nothing is a miracle, or as though everything is a miracle."
--Albert Einstein

The Science of Sound in Healing

Fabien Maman, a French composer and bio-energeticist explored and documented the influence of sound waves on the cells of the body. He was fascinated with energetic healing techniques, and wondered if we are really touched or even changed by music? If so, how deeply does sound travel into our bodies? He began a year-and-a-half study joined by Helene Grimal, an ex-num who had left the convent to become a drummer. She supported herself by her profession as a biologist at the French national Center for Scientific Research in Paris. Together they studied the effect of low volume sound (30-40 decibels) on human cells.
They mounted a camera on a microscope where they had placed slides of human uterine cancer cells. They proceeded to play various acoustical instruments (guitar, gong, xylophone as well as voice) for periods of twenty-minute duration, while they observed the affect on the cells.

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Cancer cells being destroyed by sound

     The most dramatic influence on the cells (as shown in the actual photographs above) came from the human voice when Maman sang a series of scales into the cells. Over a period of fourteen minutes the nine musical notes (C-D-E-F-G-A-B- and C and D from the next octave above) were sung. "The structure quickly disorganized. "Fourteen minutes was enough time to explode the cell when I used these nine different frequencies....The human voice carries something in its vibration that makes it more powerful than any musical instrument: consciousness…. It appeared that the cancer cells were not able to support a progressive accumulation of vibratory frequencies and were destroyed," reports Maman.
     His findings in the laboratory setting urged Maman to continue his study, but this time he chose to work with two breast cancer patients. Each woman committed to tone for three-and-a-half hours per day over a period of a month. In one case, the tumor vanished completely. The second woman underwent surgery to remove the tumor. Her surgeon reported that the tumor had reduced in size considerably, and had literally dried up. She recovered fully from the surgery and made a complete recovery. Maman’s explanation for this incredible phenomenon was substantiated by the photographs he had taken during his case studies. He says, "the cancer cells show evidence of cell nuclei incapable of maintaining their structure as the sound wave frequencies attack the cytoplasmic and nuclear membranes." The vibration of sound literally transforms the cell structure. As the voice intensifies and time passes with no break in sound, the vibratory rate becomes too powerful, and the cells cannot adapt or stabilize themselves. Therefore, the cell dies because it is not able to accommodate its structure and synchronize with the collection of sound. They cannot live in an atmosphere of dissonance and they cannot become resonant with the body. Therefore, the tumor cells destabilize, disorganize, disintegrate, explode and are ultimately destroyed in the presence of pure sound.

The Patterns of Vibration
     Similar evidence about the affect of sound vibration was demonstrated by Ernst Chladni who has been referred to as the father of acoustics. He was a seventeenth-century German scientist and amateur musician who, in 1809, hypothesized that sound could move matter. He proved this theory through a series of dramatic demonstrations utilizing sand sprinkled on a plate that was affixed to a pedestal. He then drew the bow of a violin around the circumference of the plate. Astonishingly, the sand rearranged itself into intricate geometric designs that changed as the sound changed (Fig. 1). These dramatic shapes have now become known in the scientific world as the Chladni figures.


Fig. 1: Chandli figures	Fig. 2: Pattern of the human voice	Fig. 3: Om chanted into a drop of oil

       In 1967, the late Hans Jenny, a Swiss doctor, artist, and researcher, after ten years of research, published the book Kymatik -Wellen und Schwingungen mit ihrer Struktur und Dynamik which was later translated into English Cymatics - The Structure and Dynamics of Waves and Vibrations. In his book Jenny showed what happened when he took various materials like sand, spores, iron filings, water, and liquid substances, and placed them on vibrating metal plates. Astonishing shapes and patterns appeared that resembled many of the geometric shapes in nature. Jenny utilized crystal oscillators and an invention he called the "tonoscope" in order to vibrate the plates. His work became known as Cymatics, which comes from the Greek kyma or wave. Cymatics has been interpreted as the study of wave form phenomena, or how vibrations, in the broad sense, generate and influence patterns, shapes and moving processes.
     The tonoscope was able to make the human voice visible without any electronic apparatus as an intermediate link. This made possible an ability to view the physical image of a vowel, a tone or song that a human being produced directly. Thus, Jenny could not only hear a melody--they could see it, too!   In Fig. 2, Jenny demonstrated the sound of the human voice. He believed that everything in nature was created out of a sound that bears the same energetic pattern. In the beginning was the word or the logos.
     In his research with the tonoscope, Jenny noticed that when the vowels of the ancient languages of Hebrew and Sanskrit were pronounced, the sand took the shape of the written symbols for these vowels, while our modern languages, on the other hand, did not generate the same result! Jenny questioned how this was possible. Did the ancient Hebrews and Indians understand what seemed a mystery to us? Is there something to the concept of "sacred languages"? What qualities do these "sacred languages" possess? Do they have the power to influence and transform physical reality, to create things through their inherent power, or, to take a concrete example, through the recitation or singing of sacred texts, to heal a person who has gone "out of tune"?   Were these "sacred tones" used to create such miracles as the pyramids? Fig. 3 is a picture of the sacred sound "Om" when sounded into a drop of oil.
     An interesting phenomenon appeared when he took a vibrating plate covered with liquid and tilted it. The liquid did not yield to gravitational influence and run off the vibrating plate, but remained constructing new shapes as though nothing had happened. If, however, the oscillation was then turned off, the liquid began to run. When he was able to begin the vibrations again, he could get the liquid back in place on the plate. According to Jenny, this was an example of an anti- gravitational effect created by the vibrations.
     Dr. Jenny believed that the universe is harmonically related, and this relationship can be found in the sounds reverberating throughout the universe. "The real work is what is called melos, or speech. This brings the larynx and its action into the scope of our studies. We must learn about the larynx as a creative organ which displays a kind of omnipotent nature," Jenny stated.

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