How to Use Sound to Heal: Understanding the Principles of Resonance in the Human Body

Posted by admin on April 30, 2013 ~ The Healers Journal

Note: Be sure to read the section on Intention


HJ: Anyone who has experienced a quality sound healing can attest to the profound power they have to induce states of expanded awareness and deep healing. But how, exactly does this work? What is the science behind this sacred method of healing? As a sound healer myself, the answers to these questions are not just interesting, but influence how I do my work and the way in which I approach and innovate when creating new pieces. Sure, I can intuit how sound healing works — sound being a vehicle for the expression of vibration, a fundamental quality of energy in the universe — but how does it specifically influence the cells and organs of the body? How, specifically, does it influence the mind?


The Aboriginal people of Australia are the first known culture to heal with sound. Their (modern name, didgeridoo) has been used as a healing tool for at least 40,000 years. The Aborigines healed broken bones, muscle tears and illnesses of every kind using their enigmatic musical instrument. Interestingly, the sounds emitted by the yidaki are in alignment with modern sound healing technology. It is becoming apparent that the wisdom of the ancients was based on “sound” principles.

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The healing chapel at Deir el-Bahari, Thebes, was dedicated to Amenhotep-son-of-Hapu, a deified healing saint closely associated with ”Imhotep” who is largely recognized under the title of ‘physician.’

Imhotep’s repute was so tremendous that, 1,500 years after his death, the Greeks identified him with their healing god Asclepius. These two deified men ”Amenhotep-son-of-Hapu and Imhote” were usually worshipped together in the same Egyptian healing temples. My acoustics research in the pyramids has provided strong evidence that the Egyptians designed their chapels and burial chambers to be reverberant in order to enhance ritualistic chant. (See Egyptology section of this web site.) It is, therefore, very likely that the ancient Egyptians were aware of the healing properties of sound long before the Greeks.

Pythagoras (circa 500 BC) is credited as being the first person to use “music as medicine. The flute and the lyre were two of the primary instruments used by Pythagoras and his followers for healing purposes. He is also credited with being the first to understand musical intervals from his work with the monochord, a single-stringed instrument in which the string tension was established by a fixed weight.

In the Greco-Roman period healing temples were used for “incubation”, a process in which patients underwent “dream sleep”, among other known modalities. It seems likely that music was used therapeutically during their stay and the reverberant spaces of the temples enhanced the efficiency of acoustic instruments, a function of the solid stonewalls of temples and sanatoria.

Of Pythagorus Iamblichus noted that:

“Pythagoras considered that music contributed greatly to health, if used in the right way “He called his method ‘musical medicine” To the accompaniment of Pythagoras” his followers would sing in unison certain chants” At other times his disciples employed music as medicine, with certain melodies composed to cure the passions of the psyche…anger and aggression.”

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Development of sound healing in modern times


In 1938 another German scientist, Raimar Pohlman, demonstrated ultrasound’s therapeutic properties in a Berlin physiotherapy clinic. By the 1950’s ultrasound had become a widely used sound healing modality. Even to this day the underlying healing mechanism is not fully understood.


Cymatherapy International bought the rights for the technology from Manners and now manufactures the Cymatherapy machine in the USA. Their version uses advanced computers to create ultra pure tones, mostly in sets of five. It has 700 codes that address a huge range of injuries and ailments. There are many other sound healing modalities currently entering the market place, including personal therapeutic ultrasound units manufactured in the Far East, many of which find their way into people homes.

Principles of Resonance URL
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Funadmental principles of sound healing



Another possible explanation of how sound is able to trigger the healing response relates to cellular ion channels. Situated within a cella membrane, ion channels are the means by which the cell receives nourishment and communicates with neighboring cells. In dysfunctional cells it is proposed that some of these vital channels are shut down causing cell senescence, so literally the cell is sleeping. In this hypothesis, sound opens the closed channels, supporting the cell to awaken and resume normal functioning and replication.

Dr James Gimzewski, of UCLA, California, has taken a revolutionary approach to studying cellular function. He uses an atomic force microscope, a kind of super-sensitive microphone, to listen to the sounds emitted by cells. The focus of this new science, called a sonocytology, is mapping the pulsations of the cella’s outer membrane, thus identifying the song’s of the cell. Gimzewski’s work has revealed that every cell in our bodies has a unique sonic signature and ‘sings’ to its neighbors. Sonocytology is a potentially powerful, diagnostic tool for identifying the sounds of healthy cells versus those of injurious ones. But it introduces an even more exciting prospect: the ability to play the destructive sounds of rogue cells back to them greatly amplified, so that they implode and are destroyed. In this scenario there would be no collateral damage to surrounding tissue since healthy cells would not resonate with these frequencies.

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Entrainment between two protein molecules (Energy Medicine, The Scientific Basis)


Other related research (Weisenfield and Moss, 1995) concerns cellular emission of biophotons. Intrinsic random noise, created by the activity of membrane ion channels, may be entrained by incoming weak electromagnetic fields to create cell signals that harmonize with the incoming frequency. This effect is known as stochastic resonance and can have positive effects on cell function.



The role of intention in sound healing


Intention consists of using your focused thoughts, feelings and visualizations to attract whatever is desired, such as enhancing one’s health. It seems possible that the energy of intention is carried on the frequencies of sound. American sound healer, Dr Steven Halpern, believes that, “Sound is a carrier wave of consciousness. ‘One’ intention is the spiritual counterpart of the sound and the combination of sound and intention create the outcome of healing.


Sound + Intention = Healing








Intention powered by the healing energy of sound is the key to improved health and other improvements in one’s life.


For references: Click here


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