PSYCHOPHONETICS- LOVE OF SOUNDS
New faculties of Self-knowledge and Healing
Australian Naturopathic Practitioners & Chiropractors Association Journal, Vol. 2,1995
By Yehuda Tagar
Can a way be found for the creation of a unique path of personal development for each individual? I always believed it must be possible for everyone to create his/her own unique and personal style of expression, growth and healing. But for many years I had been struggling for it with no ready-made ways of doing it for myself, or of helping others to do it. I had to work hard at it. At one point I called this striving:" Cherishing the un-born way of being born.". Something was however born since, and this article is an attempt to describe it.
When a newbornbaby is about to get choked as the flow of oxygen does not reach it through theirreversibly cut-off navel cord - it screams, and thereby discovers to itsastonishment that it has got a voice, lungs, ability to breath, a new way ofcoping, following no previous experience. It had to become blue before the newway of breathing could be found.
What isthe equivalent pattern on the personal-developmental level? The validityof given models for running our lives is falling increasingly apart. As thetradition of the past fails to guide the present challenges - new resources areobviously needed for the guidance from the inside.
The reliance on experts for guidance is obviously failing us all around. As webecome increasingly aware of the uniqueness of individuals in the East andWest, North and South, it is less and less possible to be guided by expertsfrom the outside. We have more medical experts than ever before, and at thesame time many more incurable diseases; more kinds of spiritual aspirationsthan ready-made religious and spiritual doctrines to name them with, and manymore types of human psychological complexions than psychological theories toexplain them. We have become too unique for generalisations, and the vacuum ofknowledge around us cannot be filled from the outside any more. Can it befilled from the inside?
For thatto happen - new faculties of Self-knowledge must be available for us. They cannot be made of new theories, however great, nor new religion, expertiseor sets of answers and techniques, in any field of action. They must be made ofour embryonic ability to know for ourselves. What we urgently need are newways of Knowing.
The situation weare in as humanity at this point in time, between being guided from outside andbeing guided from inside, was beautifully portrayed in a verse by RudolfSteiner, one of the fore-runners in this century to create methodologies forthe development of Self-Knowledge:
TheStars once spoke to the Human.
Itis world destiny that they are silent now.
Tobe aware of the silence can become pain
Forthe Earthly Human.
Butin the deepening silence
Theregrows and ripens
Whatthe human speaks to the Stars.
Tobe aware of the speaking
Canbecome strength
Forthe Spirit-Human.
To find one'sown "Speech to the Stars" one must come to know oneself ever afresh.
One way ofdelivering new faculties of self-knowledge is called Psychophonetics –thehealing power of sounds.
It is a methodof human unfolding for Personal-Development, Counselling, Expression, andArtistic development.
Based onindications for research given by Steiner, Psychophonetics is a process ofself-discovery based on the direct and powerful experience of the sounds ofHuman Speech, consonants and vowels.
Its effect onthe whole organism is profound, enabling inner contents to be"visible" and accessible for study, release, transformation,enhancement or dissolution, according to the specific need. Psychophoneticsdoes it by giving each inner experience its own unique expression, free of thelimitations of intellectual/verbal language, discovered from the inside - out;it gives inner experiences a direct expression by activating the strongintelligence of Sensation, Visualisation, Feeling, Emotions, Memories andSounds, all expressed directly through bodily gestures and movements, of whicheveryone is capable naturally. The direct use of the sounds invokes deeplyseated intelligence, previously unconscious. It is a direct, organic link tothe Body-Psyche connection. Through Psychophonetics the human experience canexpress itself in its own terms. Its focus on the dimension of human experiencegives it a broad range of applications from the medical through thepsychological to the spiritual dimension of human life.
Had our bodiesbeen dead machines and our minds been biological computers as so many of uswere brainwashed to believe, Psychophonetics would not be a possibility. Butbetween our physical body and our mind there apparently lie other layers,"bodies" of a subtler nature. Through its direct connection to thesesubtle bodies - Psychophonetics can directly address our experiences.
What are these"Subtle-Bodies"? The first one is our equivalent of the PlantKingdom. In Indian tradition it is called Prana, in the Dao it is called Chi,Sheldrake called it Morphogenetic Fields, Mindell and other post Jungians callit The Dreambody, and Rudolf Steiner call it The Ether or The Life body. Itlives not in space but in time, not in quantities but in qualities, not inatoms but in processes, rhythms and formative forces. It is the invisiblereality that creates the visible one and it is, to most people, unconscious.The second "Subtle-Body" which lies between body and soul is thedimension of sensation, through which both inner and outer processes becomedimly conscious to us. It is where deep memories, deep-seated emotions,desires, instincts, and sensuous awareness live. This is The Animal Kingdominside us. It is not fully awake, nor fully asleep. It is rather in a constantdream in us. Rudolf Steiner called it The Astral Body, the Starry world inside.
These two layersare active all the time, absorbing the deeper effects of our experiences,holding its deep memories long after our intellectual mind has forgotten them,and this is the deep seat of our long term patterns of responses and action.They are the "Raw-Material" for personal transformation.
Psychophoneticscan reach and address these layers directly because its major group of tools,the Sounds, are made of the same "material" as these layers: thesebodies live in a whole spectrum of invisible yet powerful vibrations. Thesounds are vibrations, extremely similar to the vibrations of our subtlebodies, where most of our experience is being stored. In fact, when all thesounds of human speech resound around a living human body, every aspect ofone's inner experience, from every phase and level of one's life echoes andvibrates with them, like the strings of a piano echo with the sound of guitarstrings near by. Our subtle bodies, Etheric and Astral, are like the resonancechamber of the sounds. For the one who can hear - the human content hums andsings all the time; for the one who can see - the human life forces are inconstant flow of shapes and rhythm. The sounds can simulate it all, directly,precisely, and with full consciousness. The sounds are the hidden language ofour inner life.
AsPsychophonetics evolved and grew and was applied to more and more people of alltypes and backgrounds, we realised that everyone can see these vibrations,that everyone can hear them inwardly, given a chance, trust, encouragement.With Psychophonetics we had to realise that indeed there are new faculties ofperception very near to the surface of everyone's consciousness, waiting to bestimulated and to become conscious. And we know now for certain that:
Everyone cancome to know every aspect of oneself,
to know itdirectly, first hand, with no experts involved. Furthermore we discoveredthat as the inner picture unfolded in this way - we can enter into the innerpatterns and change them from inside, taking our power back from whatever tookit from us and forced us to a corner in the course of our lives. We realisedthat, at least potentially:
Everyone isas strong as the blows one has received.
Further on wefound out that every inner need from every level can be responded to with asound or a sound combination, sometimes giving us experiences which we neverhad in life, or never had enough of , yet always needed, such as safety,warmth, love, intimacy, comfort, light, soothing, energy, and much more. Thesounds can bring up the desired experience from inside, from beyond the limitsof memory, and make it really ours. We had to realise that:
Everyone ispotentially as rich as every quality one really needs.
These are themain potentials Psychophonetics is capable of manifesting when applied bytrained practitioners. Clients and students can become proficient in theapplications of its main attributes upon themselves. In order to apply itprofessionally to others - one has to go through its professional training. Itis a training in the development of perception, in acquiring tools forself-transformation, in artistic expression and in counselling skills. It is askill of addressing human experiences in their own unique terms. Psychophonetics is one practical example of the assertion that human beingsthese days can become the experts of their own self-management, that newfaculties of self knowledge are truly with us, and that new methodologies forthe manifestation of these potentials are of great relevance today.
May it be of encouragement for those who strive in a similardirection.
For further information aboutPsychophonetics please contact Persephone College UK:
Tel: 079201 00794 / Email: uk@psychophonetics.com
www.psychophonetics.co.uk
