JONATHAN GOLDMAN
(www.healingsounds.com)

Author of The 7 Secrets of Sound Healing  (for full biography, see end of interview)

JG:       So are you coming to our sound event on World Sound Healing Day?

SOE:    Let me talk to you about that a little bit later on.  I have to admit, this is pretty new to me - sound healing.

JG:       Alright, so sound healing is very new to you.  You know, it’s interesting because there is personal sound healing and then there is, what I call “planetary sound healing.”  World Sound Healing Day is an example of planetary sound healing where we get people throughout the planet to sound forth with this “Ah” sound which seems to be a universal heart sound of appreciation.  We send that out to the planet.  In Boulder we get a group of 100 to 200 people together to do this and it’s a great thing.  One of the things is that you don’t have to know anything.  You walk into the room and everyone is going “Ah”.  And at the end, we are going to be doing it for an hour, it’s a wonderful experience.  And when I say it’s a wonderful experience, you know, it’s very interesting.  Really blissful.

It’s been recently been found that there is a neurotransmitter called cortisol, it’s transmitted in the brain and it produces trust between people.  It’s amazing.  And of course, you get your endorphins being transmitted.  You also have this entrainment of your heart rate, respiration and brain waves of people making the same, so there is an actual physiological affect of a group of people making sound together that has - on a very personal level - a very healing effect. 

It also affects the planet. There is an research group called the Global Consciousness Project, which is something out of Princeton that works with these random number generators.  And it seems that when there are events worldwide of great compassion, the random number generators become less random.  They are able to actually chart a wave form from it so they found that events of great compassion, global meditations, etc., they are able to actually chart this. 

SOE:    One thing you said for World Sound Healing Day - everybody makes an “Ah” sound.  Is this akin to when people are meditating and they are doing the “Om”?  They are trying to do it for the earth then?

JG:       What’s very interesting is that last year for World Sound Healing Day we premiered a new website called “Temple of Sacred Sound.org.”  And it’s actually the world’s first interactive sacred sound temple.  There are three different toning chambers.  One with an “Om”, one with an “Ah”, and one with a “Hu”.  So, for example, if you want to work with the “Om” sound, you can.  You can go to the “Ah” sound or you can work with the “Hu” sound.  The reason I like the “Ah” sound so much is that it’s non-denominational.  So you can get somebody who is a fundamentalist in a Christian tradition, they won’t have a problem going “Ah”.  And you can have somebody who is a fundamentalist in another tradition, they won’t have a problem going “Ah”.  You can have someone who is a fundamentalist in the “xyz period” and they won’t have a problem.  “Ah” is a vowel sound so it’s non-denominational.  There are some people who will have difficulty doing an “Om” sound because it is associated with what might be considered a “heathen” tradition..

SOE:    Because what is that supposed to be attached to?  What denomination?

JG:       That is the Hindu and Buddhist tradition.

SOE:    And what about the “Hu”?

JG:       That is a combination of the Sikh and Islamic tradition.    From my perspective, as long as you are making a sound, coupled with intention or with feeling or with visualization of appreciation, you are creating a powerful, positive energy form.  Because #1, there is a reason why most of the prayers in this planet are spoken aloud.  It’s because sound amplifies our prayers and meditations.  It’s that simple. 

Actually what we do at our Healing Sounds Intensive is exactly that.  Every night we do…we call them “Trance Dances”.  It’s a short mantra to different deities, from everything to Buddhist tradition, Hindu tradition, Hebrew tradition, Christian tradition, etc.  People chant and tone it while they move.  I have a chapter in my new book called the “7 Secrets of Sound Healing” and one of the chapters is called “Silence is Golden”.  It’s about the power of silence. At the Healing Sounds Intensive, after people have been chanting for an hour, when they have finished and are in silence, all of a sudden, they experience really transcendent bliss.  When they are making the sound, the sound has sort of help lock them into the physical plane.  Then when they are in silence, all of a sudden that’s when they really travel to the higher planes of consciousness.  Everybody in this room, (and we have about 100 people taking part in this), will slowly sit down or lie down and nod out for half hour – traveling to other planes of consciousness, talking to beings, having these deep powerful meditations and blissful experiences.  It’s an extraordinary experience. 

I wouldn’t be doing it if it wasn’t so amazing and so much fun and so very transformational. Everyone who participates in these Trance Dances have such extraordinary experiences.  That’s why I got into it.  It was 30 years ago when I had my first experience with sound in this manner. I was like, oh, my goodness gracious, I’ve got to find out more about this. 

SOE:    And what was that experience?  What happened?

JG:       There was a lovely, lovely woman who became my teacher and my dear friend, and in fact my book, The 7 Secrets of Sound Healing is dedicated to her.  Her name is Sarah Benson and we call her the “Divine Mother of Sound Healing”.  She just passed on very recently.  30 years ago, Sarah put me in the middle of the circle and had people sounding my name for about 15 minutes.  I had never had this happen before.  I lay down.  I took off.  I went out of my body to some other place and when it was over, I came back and I had this extraordinary spiritual awakening.  I said, “Gee, I got to find out more about this!” because it was definitely as profound and as powerful as any of the other tools that I encountered.  .

SOE:    Why were you at this meeting?

JG:       Why was I there?  Two weeks before I had been playing in a rock and roll band in Marshfield, Massachusetts. I was lead guitarist and the singer.  I went on stage after our break, and I began playing and I looked out at the audience and all of a sudden I had this realization that the music that I was creating, coupled with the ambience of the alcohol and the other intoxicants that people were imbibing at the club that we were playing in was helping create this overall ambience of negativity and violence.  And I had the thought – “Gee, I wonder if music could be used to make people feel better?” 

I was about 30 years old at the time and I had been playing professionally since I was 15 years old and I never had that thought before.  The idea of using sound as a human modality did not enter my consciousness until two weeks later when somebody handed me a flyer for a workshop on healing with sounds featuring this woman Sarah Benson.  I went to this workshop.  I guess the universe was saying, “Okay you are interested in healing with sound.  Here is a major teacher.”  Thus, I had that experience with Sarah of having my named sounded in a circle which changed my life. And that’s how that happened for me.  I like to tell people that the Light of God struck me one night when I was playing on stage. 

For several years after I was at this experience, I ultimately stopped playing in bands and then I stopped listening to rock and roll because I became convinced that rock and roll was negative music.  This did not come as a suggestion from Sarah. It was merely a belief I initially had as I was beginning to investigate the idea of healing with sound.  And then I came to a very powerful realization that may be one of the most important concepts that I helped bring into this planet. This realization was about the importance of intent, which is the energy encoded upon the sound that we make and receive. I created this formula

Frequency + Intent = Healing

Frequency is a term I use for the actual sound that is being created and intent is the energy that is encoded upon the sound. 

The reason that I came to this was that after I had that experience with Sarah Benson, I realized I wanted to dedicate my life to basically bringing awareness to the sound of music for healing onto the planet.  This is in about 1980-81—a long time ago. 

At that time, I formed the Sound Healers Association. The Sound Healers Association was a non-profit organization dedicated to awareness and research of uses of sound music for healing.   We would hold monthly meetings with different people who, at the time, were extremely well known in this field.  I was getting this massive education in it.  I went then to Leslie University which featured a master’s degree in independent study. I  convinced the people in charge  that there was actually some merit to this idea using sound or music for healing, and began collecting data.  I did my thesis work, got my degree. Then a few years later, I moved to the mountains outside of Boulder. 

I remember I was working on a book.  And I remember having a pile of information that was papers of different systems of using sound and music for healing.  And they were stacked about a foot high.  I remember going through it and I trying to put it together for this book. As I went through the different systems, I thought: , how can this be?  Because there were all these different systems of using sound and music for healing, but they were not necessarily in agreement. Spiritual Master A would use one mantra to resonate a chakra.  Spiritual Master B would use a completely different mantra to resonate the same  chakra.  Or they would use same mantra to resonate a different chakra.  Scientist X would use one frequency to resonate an organ; while Scientist Y would use a totally different frequency for the same organ.  And I remember going through all these different systems and then holding my head in my hands and being in a state of intellectual angst.  Because I couldn’t get understand it. How could this be?

The whole thing was that I knew there was this basic principle of sound healing and yet these people who used very different systems of sound were claiming great success. I was sure they weren’t lying.   How could that be when nothing basically was in agreement?  Then I hear a voice.  The voice said, “It is not only the frequency of the sound that creates the effect.  There is also the intention of the person creating the sound.”  I wrote down these words: “ Frequency + Intent = Healing”.

And my live changed.  I remember going to these different scientists and doctors and saying, “Have you ever contemplated the importance of intention?”  And they look at me like I was like from another planet.  Now you can turn on some PBS and see some well-known authority talking about the power of intent.  It is accepted now, but back then it was like “Intent? That’s ridiculous.” Now, the power of intent has finally become accepted. I am grateful for that. 

A lot of people are aware of the work with a man by the name of Masaru Emoto.  Dr. Emoto’s work is extremely important.  His research has shown that if you take water and put a positive intention into it, when it is examined under a Darkfield microscope, it will look like a snowflake, crystalline pure.  Or if it’s not a positive intention—a negative intention, then the water will look like mud.  For me, perhaps the most important of Dr. Emoto’s research shows this water that is polluted. This water is photographed and looks like mud. Then a Buddhist priest does this sutra, this prayer over the polluted water.  All of a sudden, when it’s photographed again, the water looks like crystal again.  This is an extraordinary example of using sound to actually shift and change the vibrational level of the planet as well as, you know, purify our water.  That gets back to the importance of World Sound Healing Day and how our sound coupled with intention can create positive change on this planet.

I am jumping around a little bit and want to briefly return to when  I stopped playing rock and roll for a few years. This was basically because I read too many things about rock and roll being bad music.  But then I came up with “Frequency + Intent = Healing” and I realized that, some of the most incredible and positive music on the planet could be considered rock n’ roll, like the work of The Beatles – “And in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make.”  What a beautiful energy form that is and how could I possibly make the assumption that any particular genre was good versus any particular genre was bad?  It depends on who’s doing the music and what they are saying, what they are creating. 

Now, I’d like to talk briefly about some of the basic principles of using sound to heal.  This is one of the more interesting interviews because I usually start at this point.

Sound is basically a wave form.  And how fast or slow this wave goes is called its “frequency”.  We hear from around 20 of these waves or cycles per second (scientifically called Hertz and abbreviated as Hz.) to about 20,000 cycles per second.  That’s our hearing range, But our friends in the oceans, the dolphins, can receive and project information upwards of 180,000 cycles per second. That’s more than 10 times greater than our range of hearing.

What I like to say is that just because something doesn’t fall into our realm of this very, very small bandwidth of range of hearing—what we can hear—doesn’t mean that there isn’t a sound being created.  And indeed, as our aged mystics and now our quantum physicists are saying, everything is a vibration.  “In the beginning was the word.”  “The Lord said, let there be light.”  Then you have well known quantum physicists tell us that “Everything is music”.  The universe is music.  Same thing as what the ancient mystics told us.. 

SOE:    Please explain that.  You said, “God Said “Let there be light.”  And then you said that other people are saying “It’s all music.”  How did those two go together?

JH:       In the beginning was the Word.  Sound.  Right?  And the Lord Said ‘Let there be Light’—sound creating light.

SOE:    Okay, I understand.  And so they are saying his voice or his sound – that created the light, the sound?

JG:       Okay, I’m going to give you about five other examples:
-From the Vedic tradition – In the beginning was Brahman with whom was the Word and the Word was Brahman.
-In the ancient Egyptians tradition - The god Thoth would think of an object, speak its name and bring it into being.
-From Popul Vuh, the sacred text from the Mayan tradition - The first real men and women are created solely through the power of the word.
-In the Hopi tradition - The Spider Woman sings the song of creation, basically, bringing life to the planet. 
-In the Oriental traditions and the Polynesian traditions - A god or goddess would blow a conch shell or hit a giant gong bringing life into being.

So there is constantly the original creative sound.  And indeed, what do they call the original creative sound in science?  The Big Bang. 

I was doing a presentation along with Dr. Michio Kaku, one of the world’s foremost quantum physicist and I said, “We don’t know each other.  You don’t know my work and I don’t know your work, but I have a feeling we are going to say the same thing.”  And he kind of looked at me and scratched his head.   The first words out of his mouth were, “Everything in the universe is music.”   And I just looked at him and smiled. 

This includes the electrons moving around the nucleus of an atom. or planets in distance galaxies moving around stars.  Everything is moving, the vibration.  Whether this vibration is an audible sound doesn’t matter because, as we said, dolphins can hear 20 times greater than we can.  We can hear nothing yet dolphins can do it.  So if it’s creating a vibration, it’s creating, at least conceptually, a sound. 

That includes every part of our body.  Every organ, every bone, every tissue is in the state of vibration.  When we are in a state of health, we are like this wonderful, overall orchestra that is creating this wonderful symphony of the self.  In fact we say we are in “sound health”.  Right?  What happens if, using this metaphor for the orchestra, one of the violin players loses their sheet music?  They begin to play the wrong notes, the wrong melody.  Pretty soon this musician is playing not only out of tune; the entire string section is off.  Pretty soon the entire orchestra sounds off.  This is a metaphor for something of our body vibrating out of ease.  And what do we say?  It is dis-eased. 

Now the basic idea of using sound as a healing modality is very simply - what if we could somehow project the correct resonant frequency to that part of the body that is vibrating out of ease?  What if we could give the string player back their sheet music?  It’s that simple. 

SOE:    And I think you said it really doesn’t matter if you believe it or not.  It works.

JG:       Well, belief is important. 

SOE:    Is that the part of the intent?

JG:       That is part of the intent.  And listen, I have right next to me a book by a doctor named Bruce Lipton called the Biology of Belief.  Another book by a very dear friend of mine, Gregg Braden – The Healing of Beliefs.  Belief is important in terms of our co-creation of consciousness of the universe.  Now I will tell you, and I have no explanation for this, but I have seen people who are total non-believers and experience sound and go through profound changes.  And I’ve also seen people who were total believers not have any experience at all.

SOE:    Do you both have to have intent – the player and the audience?  In your instance, the person who makes the sound to who is receiving it? 

JG:       Probably consensus reality.  It’s co-creative reality. It’s best if both parties to sound healing experience really need to have intent.  I think there is a feedback loop that occurs anywhere, any time, any place regarding anything.  It’s sort of a phenomenon of 1 plus 1 = 3, where the experience is a combination of the sum of the parts and at the same time, greater than the sum. That’s a very large statement to make but I really do believe that.  I believe that in the terms of the whole idea of consensus reality--the co-creative reality experience, it’s a group energy that’s needed. . 

Regarding the way we work with people and interface with them vibrationally, have you ever met someone you really immediately liked?  Or immediately dislike them?  There is some sort of field that is created.  Your field is interfacing with their field.  Your vibrations are interfacing with their vibrations and either it’s copasetic and harmonious or it isn’t.  So I think nothing is ever really one-sided. 

I think there is a 50/50 relationship in terms of the importance of belief. intent and visualization and the sound that’s created. In fact, my latest formula which is the “7 Secrets to Sound Healing” is

Sound + Belief = Outcome

SOE:    Does it matter what is making the sound?  The type of instrument used?

JG:       Well, this is a very, very deep and complicated question.  This is open for interpretation and I’ll simply say that some people believe it does and some people believe it doesn’t.  How about that?  There are people who will tell you that the only healing instruments are harmonically tuned acoustic instruments.  And I think that is ridiculous because that mean that any time you listen to a recording such as a CD it can’t have healing abilities because it’s not acoustic.  I have a record company that produces music for meditation and relaxation.  We have file cabinets full of testimonials from people who have received really, really positive results from listening to CDs.  And that’s a reality that I’ve experienced.

With regard to the physical effects of sound, there are physiological phenomena that are produced by sound waves interfacing, or interacting, with our brain waves, our heart rate, our respiration, our nervous system.  And it’s a physical experience that must be acknowledged.  So that for the most part, even if my intention is one thing, if I yell in your ear, it’s going to cause effect your body –your blood pressure, heart beat, your respiration and your brain waves will speed up.  It’s going to cause a disruption of your hormonal process and cause adrenalin to be released.  This is just the physics of sound and how sound affects the body.  So when you say, well, does it matter what instrument?  Well, yes, probably.  I would like to say if it’s an instrument you like, then you probably get a better result.  But then again, there is the phenomenon I just described that with regard to the increase in brainwaves and release of adrenaline,  if you listen to something musical, really, really loud it’s going to have a physiological effect.  And that effect may not necessarily be beneficial.

Ever wonder why there will be a car going down the street and it sounds like there’s a bass speaker in your trunk?  Whoever it is has got the sound pumped pretty loud.  The real question is: why do they have it pumped so loud? 

SOE:    I have always wondered that.  I just thought they were trying to be annoying.

JG:       No, from my perspective, what happens in that listening to loud music creates the response I just described, which includes the release of adrenalin.  So many times people who listen to music really loud are in reality adrenalin junkies.  Isn’t that interesting?

I am concerned because, you know, these kids, everybody has an iPod these days.  You can basically pump the volume level to such a degree that you will be permanent hearing loss to yourself.  I just share that with you because it’s important.  While I’m a huge believer in healing with sound, I think that there is a possibility of creating physiological effects that are detrimental, particularly with loud sounds. 

SOE:    Well, yes, it goes back to when you were playing in the band, too.  There was detrimental effects there, of course, there were also other things in play with the alcohol.

JG:       Indeed.

SOE:    So sound heals.  Is it strictly because it is attuned to your parasympathetic nervous system or your sympathetic nervous system or can it actually work straight on a body part?  Can it work on physical aspects?

JG:       Let me stop and say that you asked two questions.  The first one - is it simply a matter of the sound going into our ear, effecting our nervous system.  The answer is no.  It’s not simply that.  But I want to say that there is, of course, the reverse of music creating the fight or flight response.  There is really soothing music that slows down your heart beat, your respiration, and brain waves, causing the release of many beneficial hormones that assist us.  We have a recording called “De-Stress” among many other recordings we have specifically created to mellow and chill people out.  It’s sort of like a sonic valium.    And this, I think, is so important these days because people are so stressed out.  Much of this music is very soothing and  helps induce calmness and tranquility,  creating what’s called “the relaxation response”, which is very, very therapeutic.  That is #1.

But #2, this is a headline from the New York Times Science Section.  “Sound shaped into dazzling tool.  Can make, break or rearrange molecules.”  So here the New York Times is talking about the fact that sound can go in and affect us on a molecular level, which means affecting our DNA, effecting us on a cellular level, which is a different way of saying what I said before about changing the vibrational rate of a particular organ or system that’s vibrating at a frequency out of harmony.  Sound can go directly into our body.  And that actually is a lot of what we do with sound.  So when you are making a sound like “Ah”, this is called “toning”.  You can actually learn to project the sound to different parts of your body.  And resonate it and vibrate it.  You can work with self created sounds to resonate for the chakras, our etheric energy centers. Self created sound can also work to vibrate, resonate and align your organs.  This is all in my latest book “7 Secrets to Sound Healing”. 

And I’m actually going to be doing a FREE “Secrets of Sound Healing” presentation at the CU Music Building on March 11th.  It’s in the Chamber Recital Hall. Room C199 at the CU campus in Boulder. You might enjoy coming there because I will be talking about more aspects of how sound can heal.  I will also be playing examples of healing music, and showing extraordinary pictures that demonstrate how the sounds create and effect matter.  It’s going to be really interesting and also a lot of fun.

Also, I’d like to again mention World Sound Healing Day. We do World Sound Healing Day on February 14, 2009 at 12:00 noon Eastern time.  I direct everybody to the Temple of Sacred Sound.  I really hope you have a chance to go there because it’s great.  It’s got great visuals.  Wonderful geometries.  It’s an award-winning website.  And you go there and the sounds of thousands of people chanting these different mantras and you just sound with them while you are projecting the energy of appreciation.  Instructions on the website are there.  And it’s about how to make sound with appreciation in order to affect planetary consciousness.

SOE:    So anybody around the world can take part in this?

JG:       That’s exactly right.  Thousands, maybe tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people, I don’t know how many, who take part in this in order to assist and help the planet.  It’s like sending a sonic valentine to the Earth. 

In addition let me remind you that on World Sound Healing Day, from 5 PM to 6 PM on Saturday, February 14th, we’ll be doing a FREE Global Toning event at the Solstice Institute, 302 Pearl Street in Boulder, Colorado.  This is a live group experience that is just wonderful. I invite your readers to come celebrate “The Sound Heard Around the World” for an hour of sacred sound and ritual as we send a sonic valentine to Mother Earth for planetary peace.  . This is a once a year event that you won’t want to miss. It’s the 7th Annual World Sound Healing Day.  There’s nothing like getting together in a room with lots of other people who making sacred sound together, toning that wonderful “Ah” sound. It’s peaceful. It’s fun. And I believe it really makes a difference in terms of assisting the creation of peace and harmony—what I call Global Harmonization—on this planet. 

SOE:    The transformational use – what is that?  Is that just transforming your life or transforming the earth?  Is that what you are talking about?

JG:       The question is, what do you mean?

SOE:    You talk about the therapeutic and transformational use of sound and music.  We have talked about the therapeutic.  What about the transformational uses?

JG:       Well, I think we actually did.  Did we talk about cortisol being released when you are making sound together in a group of people? Cortisol is the trust hormone.  When you get a bunch of people in a room who are making sound together, trust begins to develop.  All barriers of separation disappear.  We get the understanding that we are all one.  That’s one example of the transformational uses of sound. 

Another example is listening to one of my recordings.  A lot of people have, for want of a better term, I don’t want to call them “out of body experiences”, but they have spiritual encounters.  I call them transformational experiences.  They have connections to divine energy forms.  Beings speak to them.  They see angels.  These beings help them and give them guidance in their life.  I consider that to be transformational.  As an addendum to that, the calmer we become, the more relaxed we become, particularly either during meditation or times of tranquility.  When this occurs, the more we are able to access higher levels of consciousness.  And to me, the accessing of higher…you know what I mean by higher levels of consciousness?

SOE:    Yes, I’m a certified hypnotherapist.

JG:       Okay, almost every piece of music that I have created puts people into different trance states.  So you understand this and therefore, I might just say that through accessing different states of consciousness, we can access different states of awareness.  People become changed. 

And to me that is one of the most rewarding things about this the power of sound is that when people get tuned in to the whole aspect of how they can use sound for healing, their lives change.  Particularly the fact that we all have the most extraordinary healing instrument.  And that’s our voice.

Now, I am not talking about getting up in front of an audience and singing a pop song or “Strangers in the Night” or “The Star Spangled Banner”.  That is entertainment.  What I’m talking about is using sound to vibrate different parts of our body, our brain waves, changing our vibrational level.  That’s called “entrainment”.  We all can do that.  Such as making that “Ah” sound.  You don’t have to have a trained voice.  We can all basically, with our intention, make this sound, and create shift and change and create healing sounds.  We all have this extraordinary body and once people realize this, their lives are also shifted and changed, Ellen.  It’s an amazing thing.

SOE:    That’s great.  And something that anybody can do.  You can do it anywhere. 

JG:       Now the only thing that I will suggest is that when you are doing this work, find yourself a place where you will not be disturbed.  You know other people, sometimes are merciless. Some people will say, “Hey, will quit making that noise?”  Many of us are what I call “wounded singers”.  You know, going out for choir and the teacher told you, “Hey, maybe you ought to try out for track instead.”  Or your brother or sister going, “Hey, would you stop singing.”  The thing is, you don’t have to be able to carry a tune in a bucket.  Just think of that “ah” sound.  All of a sudden you get the stimulation of all these different hormones and neurochemicals.  And if you are projecting this emotional energy of appreciation with a sound amazing things happen.  And it’s the simplest thing.  It’s simply rediscovering a profoundly powerful way of creating a transformation experience for ourselves.  While I say therapy and transformation, ultimately I call both these terms “healing sounds”. 

SOE:    Now we have talked and you have said to get a place and be by yourself to this. I was wondering, is it like prayer when more than one person is there? You get more of a benefit when there is two or more?

JG:       I like to use the formula 1 + 1 = 3.  Does that say it for you?  My wife, Andi, and I have an award-winning book called TANTRA OF SOUND.   We use the word “tantra” in its traditional, authentic meaning which is the “interconnecting web of life”.  We talk about how two people can use sound.  You might be having an argument with your spouse and all of a sudden, if you turn to each other and go “AAAHHHH” for about 30 seconds to a minute or so, all of a sudden all the anger will dissipate.  It’s an amazing phenomenon.  TANTRA OF SOUND is all about how to use sound to basically enhance relationship within yourself, with yourself and other people and with yourself and the divine,   The power of sound is so profound.  So extraordinary.

Think of the formula “Frequency + Intent = Healing”.  Some people have suggested that this is a unified theory of the universe--of how things work.  I believe this might be so.  It can be applied to anything.  “Healing” being the “Outcome”.  “Frequency” meaning the “Sound” or the vibration and everything is in vibration.  “Intent” means the consciousness encoded upon this—our “Belief” if you like. In my latest book THE 7 SECRETS OF SOUND HEALING, I present another version of the “Frequency + Intent= Healing” formula, and it simply this: “Sound + Belief = Outcome.”

Another interesting aspect of sound is how it affects us. One of the chapters in THE 7 SECRETS OF SOUND HEALINGis “We are Unique Vibratory Beings”.  One of the first thing I do when I present a workshop is to ask “How many of you are allergic to penicillin?”  And 15 – 20% of any given audience will raise their hand.  Now, if as we previously discussed, everything in the universe is in a state of vibration and can ultimately be perceived of as being sound, this includes pharmaceuticals.  So there is a penicillin vibration.  And for about 85% of any given audience, this vibration is going to be healing.  But for 15% this vibration is going to be toxic.  I believe you can apply this percentage to almost anything in the universe, including audible sound.  For example, I may have a CD and 85% of the people will have had incredibly powerful healing experiences. But perhaps the 15% doesn’t like it or has nothing happen at all.  Because we are all unique vibratory beings and there is no magic bullet—not even a sonic magic bullet that going to effect everyone the same way. There is going to be a percentage of us that are a little bit different and we react a little differently.  You can have somebody who has the greatest intention in the world to heal you, but you might be among the 15% that has that adverse reaction to the frequency. 

SOE:  What about using sound for planetary healing?

JG: Since the 1980’s I have been focusing on bringing awareness to healing sounds to the public.  About 5 or 10 years ago I was in a deep meditation, speaking to beings saying, “Okay, you gave me the assignment of bringing down awareness of sound healing onto this planet.  And now there are all these groups and organizations that are beginning to mainstream.  Have I done my purpose? Should I go to a desert island and just read a bunch of comic books?”  And the voice said to me, “No, you must simply bring your focus of your awareness to include not only personal sound healing but planetary sound healing.”  And that’s when the first World Sound Healing Day began.  Recently, we celebrated the 7th Annual World Sound Healing Day and the results were really positive. There were indications from the Global Consciousness Project out of Princeton, NJ that there were actual shifts in the vibratory field of the planet.

SOE:    Now, let’s talk about the planetary aspect for just a few minutes here.  Is that the same thing as shamanism? 

JG:       As a reality, I know a number of shamans who work with sound.  In fact, in most shamanic traditions, there is a tremendous focus on the power of sound to heal and transform.  In 1982 when the Sound Healing Association began, many of the people in the room, were pagans from Salem, Massachusetts.  I said, “What are you doing here?”  And they said, “You don’t know it, but what we do are the same thing.”  These people worked with the energies of light and love were very good beings.  But basically in our Sound Healers Association meetings, we were applying the principle of “Frequency + Intent = Healing” to doing planetary healing.  We would end each session sounding for planetary peace and harmony.  Even back then.  Now it’s focused more and more.

I’ve had a lot of encounters with shamans from different traditions and as I mentioned there was an immediate resonance with them because we all worked with sacred sound.  I would say that most of the indigenous peoples of the world are attuned to using sound for healing and transformation.  And most of these people have a very deep reverence for the Earth. 

You know where the word “shaman” comes from?  It’s a Mongolian word.  Very few people know about that.  If somebody needs to call themselves a shaman in order to feel that they are tuned to the energies of the earth or if they need to call themselves a pagan or what not, that’s fine. I don’t think however that different titles are necessary in order to use our sound and our consciousness to help the planet. What’s necessary is that we become attuned to the oneness of all.  The more we realize that not only we and the earth and everything on the earth are interconnected, the more focused we will be on working to assist each other and the planet as well. Sound, from my perspective, is one of the great tools in order to achieve this—creating an extraordinary connection between us. It is also an amazing vehicle that we can use in order to heal both ourselves and the planet. 

I think I’m done. 

SOE:    I think we are done, yes.  Thank you so much.  You gave me a lot to think about and I will share this with Source of Enlightenment visitors. I think they are going to find this fascinating.  And anybody can do this…

JG:       Anybody can do it.  And that’s the whole thing.  Without getting into it, there are people who work with sound healing who are great singers and sometimes they get put on platforms because they are such great singers.  And people get confused thinking that “Oh, this person is a great singer, therefore, they might be a great sound healer.”  But from my perspective, it’s the person with the greatest amount of love that manifests the greatest amount of healing sounds. 

And here’s just a last little quote from Sarah Benson – “The true sound of healing is love.”

SOE:    Have you figured out the vibration of love? 

JG:       That is a huge subject because there are certain people who believe they have figured out the frequency of love.  I honor that. However, this is not in my belief system and I think it is quite limiting with regard to the healing power of sound.  I believe that love is an intention that can be encoded on any frequency.  If there was simply one frequency of love, then if something was not in that frequency you couldn’t project love on it.  As an example, a mother holding her baby and singing to that baby—that sound is just naturally encoded with love regardless of what key or what note the mother is singing in.  If her sound had to be in a specific frequency, then that her singing would not be of love. This of course, is not true.  Have you ever heard a mother singing to her baby? It’s the sound of pure love.

In THE 7 SECRETS OF SOUND HEALING, one of my more recent formulas is “Sound + Belief = Outcome”. So if somebody believes they have to make a sound in one specific frequency in order to project love, then I guess that would be the case—at least if they’re sounding that particular frequency with the intention of love. If they believe that it’s the frequency of love, then this belief will be encoded onto the frequency. It will be the frequency of love. But as I said, from my perspective, any sound made with the intention of love is the frequency of love.

SOE:    Well, thank you.  This has been great. 

JG:       If you can, please come to a free “Secrets of Sound Healing” presentation I’m doing. It’s going to be at CU Boulder at the Music Department on March 11th at 7:00 PM. This is a multi-media presentation based upon my new book THE 7 SECRETS OF SOUND HEALING from Hay House. It’s a book I wrote for the mainstream population because the more that sound gets into mainstream consciousness, the more clarity and understanding is needed about how and why sound works as a healing modality. I think you’ll really enjoy the book. And the multi-media presentation at CU as well.  I won’t be able to get into all 7 of the “Secrets”, but it will cover enough material that I you’ll find yourself really enthralled with the subject of sound healing. Along with lots of cutting edge scientific and spiritual information, I’ll be playing some examples of award winning healing music and showing some extraordinary visual images of how sound has the ability to change and effect matter. It’s really amazing.

* * *

JONATHAN GOLDMAN is an international authority on sound healing and a pioneer in the field of harmonics.  He is author of HEALING SOUNDS, SHIFTING FREQUENCIES, TANTRA OF SOUND (co-authored with his wife Andi), winner of the 2006 Visionary Award for "Best Alternative Health Book" and his latest THE 7 SECRETS OF SOUND HEALING (Hay House).  Jonathan presents HEALING SOUNDS SEMINARS throughout the world.  He is director of the Sound Healers Association and president of Spirit Music, Inc. in Boulder, Colorado.  A Grammy nominee, Jonathan has created numerous best selling, award-winning recordings including “THE DIVINE NAME”  (with Gregg Braden),  "REIKI CHANTS",  “ULTIMATE OM”, “THE LOST CHORD”, and “CHAKRA CHANTS”, winner of the Visionary Awards for “Best Healing-Meditation Album”. He is a lecturing member of the International Society for Music Medicine. Website for Jonathan: www.healingsounds.com. Website for Sound Healers: www.soundhealersassociation.org.