Music therapy

[foosnark]

The body still needs energy. Everything does. This is not hokus-pokus I'm talking about but a fact of life. If your body is malnourished, it will not heal the open wound covered by your towel.

Obviously the cells of the body do need energy to do anything at all -- but there you're talking about energy you can measure in calories, degrees, newtons, etc.

If you're locked in a freezer, yoga or praying or music aren't going to feed you or keep you warm.

Energy is the basis of life. So is vibration , oscillation. Which brings us back to healing with music. Vibration. You can shatter glass with sound and you can influence the molecules in the body with sound. To what extent ? Who knows. This is an exciting subject, trully set in the realm of experimentation. But there are people fully engaged in healing with music.

Vibration: the other New Age buzzword

There's been plenty of experimentation on this. Thus we have sonic toothbrushes, ultrasound medical scanners, nonlethal weapons that stun people or make them crap their pants, etc. I'd argue that music is mainly in a different category from that.

Music therapy isn't magical. It's about engaging people emotionally and socially, giving them ways to communicate, staving off boredom, training hand-eye coordination and manual dexterity, etc. It's not like "play this chord progression to help with cancer, this rhythm for blindness, this instrument for severe head trauma." Nor is it "play this tune to stimulate your heart chakra" or "this frequency will make you one with the universe." And it's not "this song will make everyone feel better," as you already pointed out -- a music therapist has to be aware of that sort of thing.

Of course there's the other end of the stick: music as a psychological warfare agent. Or simply to prevent drug dealers and gangs from hanging out in front of convenience stores


This has been a particularly interesting discussion for me, because the next musical project I'm going to leap into once my second CD is released is magical/religious in nature. Basically, custom music as "spells" to assist people in specific things. I've done a little bit of it and it has "worked" in the naive sense, though I don't claim causality. (I also don't claim it works via "energy" or "vibrations" )

[Forever Sun]

If you're locked in a freezer, yoga or praying or music aren't going to feed you or keep you warm.

Oh yes it can (if refering to yoga only) And it's scientifically documented.

This particular experiment had a bunch of Tibetan monks perfoming their specific practices with the aim of drying wet blankets they were wearing. This was done in a controlled environment. You should have seen the steam coming off of them !
Yes it was filmed. There are many such experiments.

Regarding the energy I mentioned earlier and whether it can be measured or not, once you stand in front of somebody who has accumulated and stored this 'extra' energy, it can be felt beyond any measurments.

May I add (not wanting to sound patronising) if you are not actively engaged in esoteric practices, commenting about their validity is unwise.

You are correct though, when you say that music therapy isn't magical. And yet I can give you an opposite opinion (based on experience) to some of the examples you have quoted, notably, when it comes to stimulating energy centres( yes, chakras). I just feel, that continuing this topic will open myself to ridicule.

Anyhow, It is an interesting discussion, as you said, and I wish you success with the second CD and the third,the 'magical' one as well.

However don't be so shy of the term "energy" becouse if you are going to approach the subject of 'spells'
know, that they also operate on 'energy'. Here is a very ( very )simple example how it can be so :

If you stand twenty meters away from me and I whisper a request to you, you won't hear it. If I speak up, you will hear it. If I speak up louder, with the right intonation ( ie: Attitude) you will perform my request.

Here,"energy" is intristically connected with my voice and attitude.

Oh this is really that simple ! Flame away !

[foosnark]

This particular experiment had a bunch of Tibetan monks perfoming their specific practices with the aim of drying wet blankets they were wearing. This was done in a controlled environment. You should have seen the steam coming off of them !

I expect that was still a matter of having control over their metabolism, and rather than generating energy they were converting stored fuel into more heat than usual. Which is amazing enough really.

[wrench45us]

there is a context for the ability of these Tibetan monks to generate heat. part of their training is/was (before the Chinsese takeover) to go off on a solo 3 year retreat in the Tibetan mountains without much fuel or food

they'd be trained in this technique as a matter of survival.

[Forever Sun]

they'd be trained in this technique as a matter of survival.

The technique is called 'Tumo'.