What Is Sound Healing?

Cultures the world over use sound to attune to, invoke, and transform consciousness. Sound is a powerful tool, because it is vibrational in nature, and we are vibrational beings. Indeed the most modern science shows us that all life is vibrational in nature. This is in line with age old mystical thought of most cultures, which often alludes to the vibrational nature of Creation. The Hindus have a saying, "Nada Brahma", which means, all is sound, or all of creation is sound. They suggest that the primordial sound of manifest creation is the sound of "Aum", or Om, and that if we were to attune to the creative spirit, we would hear this sound. The Judeo-Christian culture might say, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1)," thus also tieing together the nature and power of sound with Creation. Other cultures have stories stating that the Creator had a thought, spoke the word of that thought, and Creation of that thought sprang forth from that word into manifestation. There are numerous theorems stipulating the melodic structures of the universe, from the spin of the planets around the sun, to the sun around the galaxy, to the spin of electrons in our body, and the structure of our DNA. Our modern music is based upon these principals derived from Pythagoras and others.
Whatever one's beliefs, we all know the power of the spoken word, of music, of chants and sung melodies, can move us into ecstatic states of rapture or deep states of despair. There is an inherent potency to the very nature of the sound itself, and its emotional content, which can be amplified or enhanced by the spoken or sung verse. While so much music in western culture has moved more into the secular arenas of entertainment, music in many cultures has historically held a deeply sacred space in the hearts and minds of their peoples, used as a catalyst to deeper insight, wisdom, transformation, or growth.

Sound itself has an inherent transformative power. Sound is attuned to the creative matrix of the universe. By coupling sound, or music, with pure intention, to attune to, invoke, or transform one's consciousness, we indeed have stepped into a powerful place.
Sound Healing is the intentional use of sound to create an environment which becomes a catalyst for healing in the physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual aspects of our being.
To become "healed," simply means to become "whole."
While intent is not a necessary ingredient to effect change with the use of sound, pure, or clear, intention brings power to every facet of our being. We cannot function without our intention, (you are intending now to read this page.) The more we are able to couple our actions with clear or pure intention, the greater our acts can manifest.
The intentional use of sound adds power to the conduit, whether it is through the use of an instrument or voice. By surrendering to the highest good, we ourselves become that conduit, or instrument, for peace, for healing, change, or growth.
By coupling our highest and clearest integrity with our intention, we come into the greatest focus in the use of sound, or any healing modality.
While sound can be generated from voice, instruments, recorded sounds or music, or tone generators, the more deeply and clearly we have coupled clear intentions for the highest good of the recipients in generating those sounds, the greater the outcome.

We can use conscious chanting for invocation or attunement, intuitive or "guided" music to come into deeper awareness, the provocative sounds of crystal "singing" bowls, ancient Tibetan bowls or temple bells, the simple sounds of tuning forks, or formless "toning" (intuitive voicing,) aligning with the highest reaches of the cosmos, and channelling through our voice and body.
No matter what techniques are used, sound is the current carrying the creative potency of unconditional love and grace from the subtle to physical dense realms. By attuning to and sounding these "sound currents" and coupling them with our own clear potential, and intention, we amplify their force, or voice, opening to and carrying aspects of the sanctity of creation into our being, into our environment, into the Earth, and into the consciousness of others. This assists others to align and move into deeper relationship with that which we each hold as sacred (in whatever form that speaks to us.) By grounding and "anchoring" those energies into our body, our consciousness, and into the Earth, we energize and charge these vehicles of which we are stewards (our bodies, our consciousness, the Earth.)
Blessings. And, Good Soundings!!
-Zacciah Blackburn, PhD
© Zacciah 2005. This article may be reproduced and distributed, as long as the following resource and contact information is intact.