Resources

The Creative Power Of Sound: Affirmations To Create, Heal And Transform
Elizabeth Clare Prophet

The spiritual science of sound and mantra.

Sound Body, Sound Mind: Music for Healing
Andrew Weil

Music: Physician for Times to Come
Don Campbell

Music and Miracles
Don Campbell

The Mozart Effect: Tapping the Power of Music to Heal the Body, Strengthen the Mind, and Unlock the Creative Spirit
Don Campbell

Music For The Mozart Effect, Volume 1, Strengthen the Mind
Don Campbell
audio recording

Healing with Great Music
Don Campbell
audio recording.

Healing with music

The healing effects of sound and music on the human mind and body are profound and well documented. Many mind-body programs include music as a technique to activate the body’s natural powers of healing.

There is a lot we do not know about music and its effects on the body, but, as Michael Castleman explains, we do know some of the mechanisms by which music helps in healing: “At least some of its therapeutic power comes from its ability to trigger the release of endorphins, the powerful opiate-like chemicals produced in the brain that induce euphoria and reduce pain…. [Music] reduces levels of stress hormones such as adrenaline. It has a calming effect on the limbic system, a group of structures within the brain that regulates emotions. And it boosts levels of immunoglobulin A (IgA), the body’s first line of defense against colds and other infections.”[1]

I have always noted the calming effect of classical music, so it was natural for me to utilize music in my healing journey. I began each day by listening to a favorite piece of music, “Pomp and Circumstance,” by Elgar. I took it with me each time I traveled to chemotherapy. As I played the piece, I meditated and composed prayers that captured my life’s desires. At times I would get clear inner direction as to what I needed to do next.

Music quickly became a soothing, comforting, and often uplifting part of the day. I listened several times to Andrew Weil’s production, Sound Body, Sound Mind. It contains instruction on the effects of music and a sixty-minute piece of music specifically designed for healing.

During my treatment, a friend sent me a newspaper clipping of an article from the Chicago Tribune called “The Healing Power of Harps.” It tells of a group of people led by Ronald Price, who holds a Ph.D. in special education and whose own cerebral-palsy symptoms remained in remission as long as he played the harp every day. As a professor, he began a research project in harp-music therapy because he wanted to see whether the remarkable healing effect he had experienced could be replicated in others with neurological disorders. Dr. Price now plays the harp for patients and sees its powerful healing effects on people of all ages.[2]

Some music has the ability to take you to other dimensions of your being and to allow you to access areas of yourself that you might not be expressing or using. These dimensions are spheres of consciousness of your own Higher Self. When I was young, my father taught me something of this aspect of music. A favorite uncle of mine was deaf almost from birth, and although he could not hear with his outer ears, he often heard beautiful, unearthly music with his “inner hearing.” My father explained to him that he was not imagining this heavenly music—he was hearing the music of the spheres.

Some of the great musicians and composers have been able to capture elements of this music of other dimensions and bring them back for all of us to hear. For example, Beethoven composed some of his greatest music at the end of his life, when he was deaf. He could no longer hear the sounds of this world, but he was able to bring back sounds from other spheres and compose music that can take us to other planes of consciousness.

I tried to find music that captured this quality—music that could take me outside of my day-to-day thought and feeling processes and to a higher dimension of being. I found that music could help me to forget the details of my treatment, allowing me to focus on the light that would be the real source of my healing.

I used gentle and relaxing classical music as a background for my exercise. I walked to classical music. I sat in the hot springs and absorbed its healing sound. Besides classical music of the great composers, at various times I listened to Gregorian chants, sacred Christmas music, Russian choral works, Eastern music, Indian music, including the classical bhajans, and Tibetan Buddhist mantras.

One specific form of music therapy that has become popular recently is the use of Tibetan singing bowls and crystal bowls. I own a crystal bowl whose tone resonates with the spiritual center known as the heart chakra.

 


1. Castleman, Blended Medicine, p. 79.

2. Mary Laney, “The Healing Power of Harps,” Chicago Tribune, Sunday, December 11, 1994.

 

Excerpted from A Journey through Cancer, by Neroli Duffy