The Power of Harmonics

Discovering the Power of Harmonics

by Jonathan Goldman, author of Healing Sounds, The Humming Effect, and Chakra Frequencies

It was November 6, 1981. I was in Washington, D.C., at a conference entitled “Healing in Our Times” sponsored by the Sufi Healing Order. Thousands of people filled the lecture hall watching well-known teachers and pioneers of the spiritual and scientific communities speak on topics related to alternative healing: Elizabeth Kübler Ross spoke on death and dying; Robert O. Beeker on electromagnetism and healing; Dolores Krieger on therapeutic touch; Hiroshi Motoyama on the chakras; and Thelma Moss on Kirlian photography.

This was at the beginning of the holistic health movement, which grew to monumental proportions in the 1990s. It was the first conference I had attended on a subject that had already begun to interest me. I had recently taken a workshop on healing with sound and music and, coming from a family focused on traditional allopathic medicine (my father, grandfather, and brother are all MDs), this new approach to wellness was very exciting.

I had not followed in my father’s footsteps. I had been a musician playing the guitar in commercial rock ’n’ roll bands. Until my introduction to holistic health, I had seen no possible connection between music and healing. That was why I was so pleased to be at this conference waiting for the next speaker: Pir Vilayat Khan, spiritual head of the Sufi Order of the West. His topic was “Healing with Light and Sound.”

Pir Vilayat Khan spoke on using sound and light to stimulate the body and the auric fields. I was intrigued by the concepts of the chakras and their relationship to sound, and now specifically wanted to hear about this. I listened carefully to Pir Vilayat and I waited for the information I was seeking. It did not come and throughout most of the lecture, I sat excitedly in my seat, waving my hand wildly, trying to ask a question about the subject. Pir Vilayat took a number of questions from the audience, but not mine. At the end of his talk, I found myself in a crowd that surrounded him. Suddenly, I was facing this white-haired spiritual master. He looked at me and nodded.

“Pir Vilayat,” I began. “Is there a relationship between tones and the chakras?”

He thought for a moment and then replied, “Yes. I believe there is. But I think the true healing power of sound is to be found in harmonics.”

“Harmonics!” I said. “Yes! Harmonics! Thank you!” and I walked away triumphantly, feeling that my most important question had been answered at last!

The Harmonic Choir

The problem was that I had no idea what Pir Vilayat was talking about. As a musician, I knew that harmonics were part of a technique of tuning the guitar. You would dampen the string so that a muffled tone was produced when the string was struck and you then tuned another string to this muffled tone. But that was all I knew about harmonics.

Nevertheless, I was in a sort of daze from this encounter with a spiritual master who surely was an authority on healing with sound. Somehow, I ended up in a little bookstore outside the conference auditorium. This bookstore had been set up for the conference and sold books and tapes on subjects related to alternative healing. Almost as though I were being led by unseen forces, I found myself in front of a table which had a number of audio tapes. I looked down at a tape entitled “The Harmonic Choir,” thinking “Yes! This is what I want.” I had not heard of this recording and had no idea what was on it. But it did contain that magical word “harmonic” and something inside of me said “Buy it!”

With tape in hand, I went into the lobby of the hotel where the conference was being held. Inside the briefcase I had been carrying was a cassette player with headphones. I took out the cassette player, put on the headphones, popped in this mysterious tape and began to listen. The first thing I heard was a powerful human voice singing one single note. Then this note began to expand with extraordinary bell[1]like sounds that seemed to come out of nowhere. It was ethereal and unearthly and it was gorgeous. I do not normally have transformative experiences in crowded hotel lobbies, but almost instantly I became entranced. The next thing I became aware of was the click of the cassette player as it shut itself off.

I had had powerful experiences while listening to music, but never before had I totally lost consciousness and been transported to some other realm as had happened with this tape. Then and there, I vowed that I would find out all I could about harmonics. I listened to that cassette almost continuously. The more I listened, the more I became entranced by it. It was the most heavenly sounding music I had ever heard and I played it for practically everyone I met. Their responses were similar to mine, though perhaps not as obsessive.

The notes on the Harmonic Choir tape explained that the voices on the cassette really were human, unenhanced by any studio effects. The members of the choir had learned an ancient technique found in the sacred music of Mongolia. It enabled singers to sing two or more notes at the same time. This was called “harmonic singing.”

For months in Boston, I tried imitating the sounds on the tape. Through trial and error I actually began to create some rudimentary harmonics. Then in 1983 I went to New York to hear the Harmonic Choir in concert and take a workshop on harmonic singing. From the workshop I was able to refine my harmonic singing techniques and I became more proficient at creating two notes at the same time. After months of practice, I had my techniques down well enough so that I could begin to show others how to create some basic harmonics.

My reasons for doing this were simple. In my experience of using sound and music for healing, I had encountered some excellent sounds and techniques from the music of Steven Halpern to the toning exercises of Elizabeth Laurel Keyes. But nothing was as powerful or as profound as creating vocal harmonics. I would be relaxed and at the same time energized when I produced these double voices. I could feel the sound resonating in my head and body unlike anything else. I wanted to share this experience with others.

The Song of the Soul

There was also an interesting phenomenon that I had begun to observe regarding harmonics and toning, which was the use of the voice as a healing instrument. My initial teacher in toning was a woman named Sarah Benson from the New England area. Sarah taught the transformative and healing uses of sound and in particular the voice. One exercise that was effective involved using the voice in order to scan the auric field of another person and then project sound into that person. I began working with this technique and, as I did, I would observe extraordinary results. There were emotional, mental, and even physical imbalances that were immediately released through the use of this technique.

My first real transformational experience with sound had occurred several months before the Washington conference during a workshop with Sarah Benson in an exercise called “The Song of the Soul.” In it, a person is put in the middle of a circle of people who then chant and sing the person’s name. I was conscious during this exercise and remember being transported from the circle to the inside of a purple pyramid made of crystal. I sat inside this pyramidal structure being bathed by green light. When the group stopped chanting my name, I gently returned to my body. It was one of the most extraordinary experiences of my life and it had been due solely to the power of sound.

When my own personal studies and sound work developed to the point where I felt confident, I began teaching toning in workshops. I became aware that after a person had scanned another with their voice and was projecting sound into that person, I would hear harmonics. I could close my eyes and listen to the sounds that were coming from the person doing the toning and know when they had found the right location. Though none of my students knew about the creation of vocal harmonics, these harmonics would occur naturally when they were being used for healing.

I intuitively felt that there was something very special about this ancient singing technique, but there was virtually no available information on the subject. I found a paragraph in one book and a page in another, but there was no substantial writing on the relationship between vocal harmonics and healing. This was at the very beginning of the reemergence of harmonic singing in the West, in the early 1980s.

The Lambdoma and Cymatics

I began to read books on the physics of sound to find out about harmonics as a phenomenon of vibration, hoping that science would provide some answers, and then I met Barbara Hero. Barbara had been working with a Pythagorean formula—called the Lambdoma—for healing with sound and created the Lambdoma frequencies of this formula with a synthesizer. I realized that the Lambdoma was based upon the harmonic series and could be applied to the voice.

In 1983, through my acquaintance with Barbara, I was introduced to Dr. Peter Guy Manners, a British osteopath who had invented a machine called the Cymatic Instrument, which utilized the direct application of sound into the body for healing and used harmonically related tones that resonated imbalanced parts of the body, restoring their natural frequency. I asked him if it was possible to do the same thing with the human voice and he replied affirmatively. This confirmed for me that my intuitive feelings about harmonics as a tool for healing were correct. I began to study and learn about cymatics and the principles of resonant frequency healing.

Transforming Sound into Light

In 1987 another experience occurred that radically altered my concept of what harmonics were doing. It was during the Harmonic Convergence, August 16 and 17, 1987, a time when many people believed a shift in planetary consciousness would occur and were working to open themselves to these transformational energies through meditation and chanting. I journeyed to Mexico, first to the Tule Tree where Mayan prophecies had foretold that Quetzalcoatl, the plumed serpent God, would spring forth to issue a new era of consciousness on the planet. Next I went to Palenque, where the Maya had built a city with structures reminiscent of ancient Egypt.

Late one night a guide took me and five travelling companions on a tour of Palenque. He said he would show us a Palenque that we would not otherwise experience and took us into one temple that had been closed to the public, leading us down into a subterranean level using his flashlight. He pointed to a doorway and said to me, “Make sound here.” He had known about my interest in sound, but I could not figure out why he wanted me to do this.

Then, he turned out his flashlight and we were immersed in total darkness. I had never been in a place so black. There was no light anywhere.

“Make sound,” he urged.

“Sure,” I said, shrugging my shoulders, a futile gesture since nobody could see a thing.

I began to tone harmonics toward the area he had indicated before the light went out. As I did so, the room began to become illuminated, but it was not like the light from a flashlight. It was more subtle, but it was definitely lighter in the room. You could see the outlines and figures of the people there. Everyone was aware of this and after I stopped toning, the room was filled with exclamations. Then the guide turned on his flashlight again and we continued our tour.

The full implications of this experience did not occur to me until I arrived back in the United States. Somehow, I had been able to use sound to create light. This was not the same phenomenon as sound turning into light, a scientific hypothesis in which a sound wave, when speeded up, becomes light. This was different, having to do with creating fields of light through sound and, in particular, vocal harmonics.

My Book on Harmonics

Healing Sounds is about the extraordinary potential of vocal harmonics to be a tool for health and self-transformation. We look at the science and mathematics of harmonics and how all things are harmonically related; we examine sound as the primary creative force in the universe in relation to harmonics. We explore the esoteric uses of harmonics in shamanic and magical practices, from the hoomi singing of Mongolia to the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, learning more about the Tibetan practice of harmonics and their use in sacred rituals. We work with harmonics as tools for meditation and transformation, exploring the sonic yoga of listening. In focusing upon harmonics and healing we will begin to realize the full potential of this force.

We learn exercises and techniques for creating vocal harmonics. After all, if we do not experience harmonics for ourselves, this is all merely food for the brain. Without experiencing the wonderment of vocal harmonics, we cannot know about the powers of harmonics. Enabling us to know this power is what my book is all about.

Several years ago, it was my pleasure to do a presentation for a group of about 150 medical doctors and scientists in Germany. The group was the International Society for Music in Medicine and the presentation was on harmonics. For the first hour of this presentation, I talked about what harmonics were and their use in esoteric traditions. Then, for the second hour, I gave them step-by-step instructions on how to create vocal harmonics. As I concluded, I said to them, “I have shared with you information and techniques on what I consider to be one of the most powerful tools for sound healing in existence. I am unable to do the research that you can. I don’t have the equipment or the expertise. But now, instead of having to travel to Mongolia and to bring back a shaman who can do this form of sounding, you can do it yourselves. Perhaps you will take the next step in this work and begin the experimentation which may prove to have enormous impact. Thank you.”

I had allowed time for questions and answers and awaited them. The first hand that went up was a doctor whom I had observed at other presentations. He was always finding fault with the presenters and their material. Nothing was ever good enough; there was always something wrong. I took a gulp and called on this man, positive that he was going to say, “How can you have wasted our valuable time with this nonsense?”

Instead, he said, “Mr. Goldman, how do you feel about sharing such a powerful and sacred tool with us?”

I smiled and replied, “I feel this is most important work and I am honored to have shared it with you. It is now time for the spiritual and the scientific communities to work alongside each other so that together we can discover the extraordinary gift of sound to heal and transform.”

That is why I share the information and exercises in my book Healing Sounds, so that we may all discover this extraordinary gift of sound.

Sound has been the major transformative energy in my life. It has taught me about meditation and healing and many other important aspects that have contributed to my health and happiness. Harmonics have been my greatest teacher. I trust that harmonics will be as great a teacher to all of us.