Institute for the Study of Peak States
"Methods for Fundamental Change in the Human Psyche"
Support Newsletter #13, April 2008
"All Things Musical"
Newsletter Spotlight
From the Editor...
Student Support News
Upcoming Teleclasses
Training and Certification News
Upcoming Trainings
Research Team News
Clinics News
Feature: All Things Musical
Gaia Music
Writing out and recording the Gaia music
Tal on When Not to Use Music
Paula on the Occasional Use of Music
From the Editor...
Yes, we're being as unpredictable as ever. Or can you now predict that we'll be unpredictable?
Six months of silence, first; then the subject of the newsletter has changed, too. I was hoping for a newsletter on Inner Peace or one on EFT, but I still don't have the material for these. So I've decided, from the height of my editorship, to take a different tack and talk about something I know and love - BUT there's also an agenda! The agenda is to demonstrate how on any given topic there might be contradictory views and applications, and you might receive diametrically different advice from various people, including instructors, and it's all very confusing. Well. The fact is that sometimes we are confused, which is to say that sometimes we do get contradictory data and we don't know right away how it fits together... and sometimes it's more a matter of context. As in the question: should I use music with WHH? Well, yes, and no; it depends what you're starting from and what you're trying to achieve... so we'll cover some of that below. The BIGGER agenda, however, is to use all this as a way to foster open minds and independent thought.
There are many, many questions that still lack a satisfactory answer, and while this can be frustrating as hell to a beginner, it can also be a source of intellectual delight if it's taken the right way. It's exciting to be part of something new and unfolding... And if people have this attitude, we benefit, not only from their forgiveness (thank you, thank you), but also because they tend to be more careful in taking session notes, and they tend to inform us if they get a surprise peak state or experience (or disaster)... So we have access to open-minded data from a hundred people instead of ten. People also tend to be much more cautious when they remember we are still blazing the trail. This isn't a four-lane paved road yet, folks, so hold off on the drag racing for now... don't forget your compass and your healing buddy.
Until next time...
Paula
Student Support News
Monti Scribner is our student support coordinator, and sent this email to the new students from Denmark. We reproduce it here to welcome everyone who joined since the last newsletter, and to remind everyone that support is available, and as a way to announce that Samsara also has volunteered to act as student support. Thank you Samsara!
Monti writes:
"I hope that you are doing well following your participation in the recent Peak States workshop. Just wanted to say hello and welcome you to the next phase of your experience with peak states…practice, practice, practice!!
"I hope that you are in contact with your study group and have scheduled some time to work together. Please know that, in addition to your local practitioners, Samsara and I are available for assistance if you have questions or issues. Feel free to contact us – no question is too minor – we really enjoy sharing this work & look forward to getting to know you!
"Skype name: Montisc
Eastern United States – near Charleston, South Carolina
Email: Monti [at] peakstates.com
Phone: 843-588-1305
"Samsara Salier
Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
Email: samsara [at] peakstates.com
Skype name: s_salier
"All my best!
"Monti Scribner"
Monti also gently reminds people to make sure they review and apply the principles they learned in class before deciding whether to call support in a crisis. "It's difficult to integrate a whole new paradigm, but the vast majority of emergency calls for help resolve easily as soon as I remind people to apply what they learned. It's so easy to just revert to whatever we knew and did before, as soon as the workshop ends... The first crisis is always a wake-up call."
See also Nemi's posting on the WHH list: Frequently Asked Questions, dated November 24 2007. We hope to turn this into the start of a FAQ section on the Peak States website soon.
Upcoming Teleclasses
There are currently no teleclass series in progress. Check with your regional coordinator for informal study groups in your area.
Training and Certification News
From Nemi Nath
Since the last newsletter we have 2 newly certified therapists, Sharon Lockman and Gary Phillips, both from Australia. They can now accept clients. Additionally, we have 4 people from Denmark who have passed the test and are rounding up their paperwork for Basic Certification. Congratulations and welcome to the team of ISPS Certified Therapists.
Jewels Hayden has been a student facilitator and is nearly complete with her training.
She has also been approved to be an assessor for certification. Congratulations, and it's great to have you in the team in both these capacities.
Since the start of 2008 we have added 2 countries to our network by holding trainings there, Sweden and Denmark. Both trainings were successful and we have 8 new graduates form Sweden and 16 from Denmark.
Denmark has taken a giant leap by landing ISPS officially. Lars and Hanne Mygind are the new provisional directors for Denmark and have signed company contracts. Hanne will be the director for the Danish clinics.
Welcome Lars and Hanne and thank you for taking that step to support ISPS.
I held 3 talks during my visit in Europe, two in the UK and one in Germany. Each was attended by 25 - 35 therapists of varying backgrounds. The new paradigm was received with great interest. The talks are helpful in finding new enrollments for the trainings and also assist the local therapists in increasing their clientele.
Breakthroughs in Training
The newly improved Inner Peace and Brain Light processes have made it possible to fully integrate all the targeted peak states during the 9-day training. In the past graduates had to go home or to Teleclasses to continue doing the Brain Light process, and sometimes Inner Peace, to bring them to completion. This now occurs during the training and graduates leave the workshop with Inner Peace, Silent Mind and Brain Light state and are able to use Life Path at home. This considerably reduces the workload on our staff after the training and makes for happier graduates.
Grant attended the Scottish and Danish trainings to introduce the Institute and the safety aspects of the work, and give the Day 4 talk on the Developmental Events and Transpersonal Biology models. It was so much better for the Institute that he was there in person and it really helped settling ISPS into the new country.
Certification update
Our certification system is still a little cumbersome and strenuous on the candidates and the assessors. The testing takes a full day and a lot of concentration. One of the reasons is that because of the nature of our material we require 100% integration of the material, not 90% or 80% as in most other training organizations. The current assessors are: Nemi, Sara, Jewels and Samsara.
To the graduates of the Basic course: all certification applications have to be sent to Nemi [at]peakstates.com as soon as you have decided to go for certification. You will receive the necessary documents that will help you prepare for certification. When you think you have integrated the theory and you have practiced enough sessions, you need to apply for a certification date also to nemi [at] peakstates.com. It can take up to 2 months to arrange one of these dates, so please let us know in good time, so you do not have to wait too long.
Australia
See the Upcoming Workshops section for a few words on the next trainings.
The planning of the first Australian ISPS Clinic is also under way, in its very first stages. I am very grateful for Rob Egan's pioneering of this project in Scotland; this will ease the establishing of clinics in other countries.
Personal reflections on Europe trip
This was the most complex teaching and training trip I have so far undertaken, with trainings in Sweden, Denmark and Scotland and talks in 2 other countries. I would like to share that this work continuously surprises me and I am in awe of its possibilities. I left in February not feeling very great health-wise at all and I am returning home after a 2 months' nonstop work schedule feeling healthy and fit, enthusiastic and radiant, as if I have been on a holiday!!! Thank you to the untiring R&D team for their continuous, and sometimes exhausting work on improving the techniques and process and finding solutions.... I am grateful.
Upcoming Trainings
We recently completed a series of workshops in Scotland, Denmark and Sweden.
A Basic Peak States Training will take place in Australia at the beginning of May. There are still places available.
Negotiations have been under way for the Addictions specialization training with Matt Fox. An Australian drug and alcohol rehabilitation centre has offered to organise the training for its counselors and other therapists. It will now take place in June.
For a complete list of upcoming workshops, please go to the Peak States website at www.peakstates.com/upcoming.html.
Research Team News
[Notes from a telephone conversation with Grant. Most of the work covered here took place in Scotland and Denmark in the last few weeks.]
The team did recently retest EFT and its effects on the primary cell, so there will be a newsletter about this soon. It's nice to confirm the usefulness of a technique that's getting wider and wider use in the field. Briefly, we found out how EFT works on trauma, why EFT can sometimes be undone, and a way to stop this from occurring.
As Nemi mentioned above, we've drastically improved the Inner Peace state process and tested the changes on two training groups. The changes were slight, but greatly improved the process. It will be available for our certified therapists soon.
We also, at last, found the biological basis for the Void in the primary cell, and the development events that bring it in. This resolves the last big unknown in the Transpersonal Biology model, and is included in the final Volume 2 text.
Updates for students: the website now holds a new section with a list of the current revisions to peak states processes and the revisions to the basic manual (www.peakstates.com/updates.html). There are also password-protected pages that are available to people who have completed their certification.
Clinics News
From Rob Egan
Rolling out specialist applications is now seen as top priority for ISPS. To this end we have obtained offices in Scotland and are currently trialing the latest version of the Silent Mind Technique on people who suffer from obsessive thoughts or are fully diagnosed as schizophrenic. See www.silentmindtechnique.com for a description of what we are doing together with pictures of the offices and therapists or for a mainstream press article, visit: www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/584253?UserKey=0
It is probably quite difficult for those of us working within the ISPS paradigm to fully comprehend the significance of the SMT, as we know of the potential of this work to help many conditions. However, when talking to mental health professionals, it has become clear to me that a successful method for eliminating ‘voices’ would probably be the biggest ever breakthrough in psychotherapy and psychiatry. Consequently, I see the clinics initially focusing solely on developing this application.
The plan is to further test the process this summer in Scotland and then train ISPS therapists in Denmark, Austria, and elsewhere by the fall. Eventually we would like to train mental health care professionals in using this technique, which will allow the clinics to move on to other applications. The income derived from these activities will go to funding ISPS R&D in other disease conditions and peak states work. We are looking for therapists who have been certified (or will become so soon) and who wish to train in SMT to work for ISPS clinics. For further information, email rob [at] peakstates.com.
On a personal note, this is a very exciting (and challenging!) time. With Grant being here in Scotland for two months doing research and training the clinic staff, we have all been working flat out. With the prospect of a mainstream ISPS application being launched on the world, we are bracing ourselves for an exhilarating ride.
Feature: All Things Musical
How does the use of music for healing fit in with the Institute's techniques? There are many angles to this. The first and most important aspect is the developmental event music, also known as Gaia music, that we use with some of our peak state processes. We will summarize what that is about, and how to use it, through a sneak preview at the relevant section in Grant's new book, plus comments from your editor; then we'll look at what John Heinegg, currently our one and only transcriber of Gaia music, has to do between the moment he senses the music in regression and the time you hear the music in a workshop.
Then I'll rerun an email exchange between a student and Tal Laks, and look at Tal's rationale for not using extraneous music. Then I'll throw a little oil on the fire and add my reasons for - just sometimes - using it!
It's not really that contradictory, either: whether it is productive to use music as an accompaniment to healing has to do with what you're trying to achieve (unblock a certain peak state? Heal a definite issue? Explore? Learn more about yourself and the universe?) -- and where you're starting from (just starting off? Trying to avoid the crux? Blocked?) It also has to do with the music itself! (Randomly chosen? Used by other modalities? Something stuck in your head?)
Sometimes music is a distraction, a handy way to avoid an issue. Sometimes it's a garbled message from your mind, who's really trying to help but has its own traumas. Sometimes it's a frightfully accurate description of your emotional state. Sometimes it's Gaia music. There are many angles, and my task is to give you the tools to learn more about this aspect of yourself.
The overarching principle, the common thread between all these takes, would be that no music is really innocuous. There is no such thing as neutral, generic music that will just help you relax and tune in to your emotions: music will do that, but depending on its atmosphere and the distribution of the tones, and also on its connotations in your own life, it will stimulate this or that area of your body, this or that type of emotion, or this or that developmental event. It's for you to decide whether this is appropriate -and safe- at any given time.
Gaia Music
Grant on Music
(a preview from Peak States of Consciousness, Volume 2, chapter 17)
"Maureen Chandler and Dr. Pellicer made another discovery when healing particular developmental events using meridian therapies. They found that playing continuous musical tones, which were specific to any given developmental event, could drastically speed up the healing of the Gaia commands in the event. In cases where we have identified the tones, we’ve included that information in our processes. To use it, simply have the tone playing continuously and softly in the background as the client repeats the Gaia commands while doing the chosen healing therapy.
"[... W]e can [also] drastically enhance the recall of the trauma material by including specific music, body postures, CoA focus on specific locations, and scent. Of these, using particular choices of music to trigger particular developmental events is by far the easiest and most effective.
"Developmental Event Music
"The music chosen has to be similar to what one can ‘hear’ during those developmental moments. Of course, those moments aren’t accompanied by real auditory music, but it is there in our awareness nonetheless. By analogy, developmental stages are quite similar to a movie where action is accompanied by music to enhance the mood. For example, during a TV wedding scene we might hear violins in the background, and so on. Note that the ‘music’ and the Gaia commands that one ‘hears’ during those developmental stages are the same for everyone, making it possible to figure out phrases and music that are generic. This means that as technique developers we also need to identify music that is similar to what a person can experience during the target developmental stage. (As an aside, Grof’s Holotropic Breathwork technique uses commercial music to stimulate traumas, and it is quite likely that they are relying on this same underlying phenomenon.)
"People commonly ask if it is permissible or helpful to use self-selected choices of music, such as music that is relaxing, or inspiring. In general, it is better to use no music whatsoever, rather than the wrong music. Incorrect musical choices send clients off to the wrong developmental events, over-riding the Gaia phrase itself in many cases. It is also preferable to use music without words, if possible (other than the Gaia command). The music itself is the key – the words in general just distract from it."
(Copyright Grant McFetridge, 2008)
Many creation stories start with a god singing the world into being...
We're certainly not the first ones to hear the music that attended on the building of our bodies and souls. In fact, one could argue that a good number of the melodies that perennially catch people's imagination are derived from developmental event music. The example everyone remembers is the first movement of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, which, together with the proper Gaia command, seems to throw everyone into the same exact moment of conception. Beethoven had an exceptional ear for melody, and many of his themes are universally moving and universally loved. It's quite possible that several of these are derived from an ability to hear Gaia. John Heinegg, in the next section, points out that we probably fit the music to the kinds of scale and musical modes we're used to hearing. Nonetheless, there are strange occurrences, like the one of Qiu Xa, a Chinese musician, who played a very old flute melody for a colleague from Brazil. He said, "But that's Andean". She said, "Nope, that's Chinese". Both cultures, across the Pacific, played the same exact tune, a tune that predated colonial times. Gaia music?
Gaia music, like the commands, is no magic potion: it does not heal you, even though it might seem that way at times. All it does is to regress you to a very specific moment in development and stimulate the traumas that kept you from growing exactly right. You still have to do the work! The way to work with music (any music, if you choose to use some) is to let it flood your whole body, and scan yourself for any physical or emotional discomfort. Then use your favourite method to heal this discomfort. Then scan again fro remaining traumas, and so on. Be sure to include any discomfort that seems to be about the music itself: it's too loud, it's too jangly, it's too fast, it's too slow, it feels wrong, it must be the wrong choice... These sensations all reflect past traumas. Keep healing until every note can wash right through you without discomfort.
Writing out and recording the Gaia music
We're very fortunate to have an Institute member who has studied musical composition and can hear Gaia. It was not always so - on the second count I mean. While John's abilities developed, Tal often helped him get the music right. They would hum bits of melody at each other on Skype, and she would say, a little more like this, a little more like that. It was very entertaining to walk in on such a conversation.
John worked diligently at healing his blocks to hearing the music, and we're all the beneficiaries. Still, most people take for granted the elaborate, multilayered recordings we use for our processes. It's not as simple as "I listen to it, and poof, it comes right out of my fingers onto the keyboard!" It's a bit like the belief that professional painters just dash out their works straight onto the canvas - a flash of inspiration, a flurry of activity, and voila! A Rembrandt! People are sometimes disappointed to find out that artists actually have to sketch their subject a bunch of times, then transfer the sketch to a canvas, then layer paint carefully, each stroke considered, to make the magic happen.
John writes:
Well, if I'm lucky, I can piggyback on the work of a Real Composer--I'll hear a bit of Gaia music and recognise it as the opening of Debussy's 'Nuages', say, or the Prelude in B flat major from Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, book 2. Then I dig up the score and copy the particular fragment that I heard. Typically there's much more to the Gaia music than just the snippet I've stolen from the composer, but having the snippet makes my task that much simpler. Or I may recognise that the feel of the Gaia music is similar to that of a particular composer, and can then look at how the composer produces that effect--for example, Poulenc's juxtaposition of chords from unrelated keys.
If the music doesn't sound like anything I've heard before, then I sit down at the keyboard and work out the harmonies that go with it. If--as often happens, alas--I have heard only a moment of the Gaia music, I'll also have to work out the completion of it. Sometimes my musical training guides me toward the right sound. Other times, I just poke around until the music sounds right.
[Editor: ...and he keeps poking around, and healing traumas around the event, until he hears more of it. John's pockets are full of small bits of paper with musical notes on them. Hence the multiple versions of any given piece of Gaia music.]
I cannot help but wonder whether the result is more John music than Gaia music. Maybe some day I will be completely free of all trauma around Gaia, and will hear her music without the overlay of my own musical personality, as well as the cultural bias that undoubtedly distorts my hearing. As a Westerner, I am trained to hear no more than 12 notes in a scale; an Indian musician, I've read, will hear 21. Perhaps Gaia music, like Gaia commands, would need to be 'translated' for non-Western ears.
There's also the problem of selecting a key for the Gaia melody. I do not have absolute pitch, unfortunately; also, for years I have had tinnitus, which takes the form of an incessant high B flat. Consequently, I tend to hear Gaia music in B flat. It's always a relief when I don't; it's much like seeing the unexpected while using inner vision, in that the unexpected is less likely to be a fabrication.
The next step--which often overlaps with the previous one--is to score and record the music. Thank Heavens for GarageBand! I may spend some time hunting around for the best instrument, or combination of instruments, to reproduce the sound of a particular bit of music. Basically, I've been teaching myself orchestration--how to add instruments in order to create an overall desired sound, as well as to emphasize or downplay particular notes or effects. I may lay down as many as a dozen tracks in order to get the sound I'm looking for. This part is slowed considerably by the fact that I'm at best a mediocre pianist. It can take me a while to get a chord sequence into my fingers, and even then I may have to tweak a melody note by note, using the GarageBand software, to get the dynamics and rhythm the way I want it. Listening to the finished piece, I'm often reminded of a story about a violinist whose recording of a concerto had to be pieced together from a number of different takes, because of his many mistakes. When they were listening to the finished recording, the conductor turned to the violinist and asked, "Don't you wish you could play that well?"
Tal on When Not to Use Music
Here is an email exchange that appeared on the WHH list a year ago. Tal answers from the perspective of healing with a set agenda, which is what we do at workshops and in other aspects of training: we are after very specific processes and very specific peak states.
The student wrote:
"Thought I'd pass along something I've found useful in practicing WHH on my own. For those with access to an mp3 player or CD player, there are a number of free music downloads (and of course, many you can pay for) that use calming music, binaural beats, etc. to help
induce a more relaxed state. A free one, entitled "Brain Flex", may be found here:
http://www.grasshopper.com/mind-games/brain-flex/ (FYI, I have no commercial connection to Grasshopper Enterprises, I just like their product, especially the price.)
Now, this is probably only useful for those of us that have not been able to schedule attendance at a Peak States One class from ISPS since from what I've read and heard about that class, Gaia commands
and special music are provided there. I put the volume down low, generally start off with a Brain Communication exercise, as suggested by Shelly and Tal, and then go digging. Hope this can be of help to some of you out there. Have a blessed day.
Tal's reply:
Dear All,
It is great to see you all enthused by this work, and I hope to see more of it. I and the rest of the staff wish to guide you through your work, to help you reach the optimal results.
Today's lesson is: do not use random music with your WHH.
As you all remember, in the Gaia command process you had music specific for that moment in development. Every moment has its own music, and if you clean yourself well, you can even hear Gaia singing to you in the present. When bringing random music into the healing process you can cause the following:
a. The music has nothing to do with any developmental event and though it may soothe you, it distracts you from the music that is happening in the moment you are working on - thus slowing down the healing.
b. The music belongs to a different developmental event, and it takes you partially or completely to that other event - the music is very powerful. Result: you heal both events partially, or none or one of them. It definitely takes longer, and you may end up healing a trauma you were not aiming for, thus not affecting your issue.
c. You may have landed upon the correct music, which will help you in healing, but if the music was randomly chosen, the chances are literally a million to one.
d. If you hear music while healing, and you verify that your mind brain is not playing distraction tricks on you, you can amplify and sing that music to assist your healing. If you do come across such music, we would appreciate your recording it for us, and describing the event, so that we can look further into it.
The suggestion to talk with your brains if you cannot find the trauma to be healed is a good reminder. But very often, merely thinking of the issue brings the trauma up in your body, and you are on your way to another fun-filled regression.
I hope this was helpful to you all.
Happy Healing!
Paula on the Occasional Use of Music
Over the years, I've asked several musical friends, "Do we hear music in our heads all the time because we're musicians, or are we musicians because we hear music in our heads all the time?" Nobody's yet been able to answer. All we know is that as a group, we're sensitive to music somehow; so the role of music in healing is of particular interest.
The music in my head isn't Gaia music. I've come to the conclusion that it's a running commentary from my mind brain. An Australian student (she's a musician too) described it as a game from her mind: give her any phrase, and soon she'll be running music that has a relationship to it; often it's a pun. Just another kind of self-talk? It appears so.
People who only have a mild version of this problem can use a technique taught in our workshops: Focus inside your mind-brain while paying attention to the music. The music often appears as an object (usually a grey loop) that will dissolve if you put your attention onto it with acceptance. This technique is included in the Basic PeakStates Therapist’s Manual.
I have an endless supply of tunes, all in full harmony, so I mostly ignore that music. In sessions I treat it like self-talk: acknowledge that it's a metaphor of sorts, thank my mind-brain for trying to help, and let it go.
The one circumstance when that music becomes important is soul loss. When you feel that emptiness, that lack, usually at the end of a session, when a really big trauma has just vacated the premises, then it's time to sing it: sing the first thing that comes to mind, sing it soulfully, until the sensation of lack disappears. (Tip: in a recent workshop, some students, working with Nemi, came up with another fix for soul loss: they put their CoA at the bottom of the area of their body that felt lacking; this got them into the relevant trauma string and gave them the relevant symptoms; then they just used EFT on the symptoms.)
At other times the music is so intrusive that I have to do something about it. If it's simple, I sing it. Expressively, going for the feelings that arise with each phrase. If the piece is complex or has a fast tempo, I might slow it down and work it one musical phrase at a time. Emotions pour out, sometimes from the words if there are any, and always from the melody. I heal those emotions with WHH, then that music goes away. (Promptly replaced by something else, but okay.) Good. That's for simple melodies. But if the piece is in fugue style, you're in trouble. Do you run a recording of the music, or ignore it? Tal mentions verifying whether the music is relevant to the trauma you're working on, or just a distraction. How do you tell?
All the techniques for clarifying inner vision apply to this as well. (See the discussion in Newsletter #4.) Briefly, it's got a better chance of being genuine if there is an element of surprise, if there is uncommon clarity, if you get a sense of absolute knowing, or if you can get independent verification. John already mentioned surprise: some musical information that does not fit your usual pattern. Clarity, in this context, would be related to surprise: you perceive music with an unusual degree of resolution, for example. Absolute knowing is trickiest to tell apart from our dysfunctional desires; this comes with practice, with assessing the results time after time and learning what absolute knowing really feels like. And independent verification would be when someone else you work with thinks about the same music at the same time, or when you have a melody appear in your head while preparing for a peak state process, then when you sit down with the commands and music of the process you recognise a melody line, a chord progression or something about the emotional atmosphere.
But most of all, you refine your perceptions and your knowledge of yourself by trial and error. And this takes us back to the good old healing notebook. You get the feeling that a certain piece of music will help you in today's healing. Great: note down what you've been working on. What is the issue? The SUDS rating of it? Where does it sit in your body? What are examples of the issue's impact in the present?
Now get that recording playing. Let the music wash through you. Are you in the same issue? If so, stay and heal for a while. Then go back to your notebook. Has the SUDS rating changed? What about the physical sensations? How do you feel about your issue's ramifications in your present life?
It can be tricky at times. We must learn to recognise when our mind brains want avoidance, and take us just next door to the issue we really want to heal (or right down the block, but that's easier to tell) and when the music really is an accurate emotional description of our trauma.
And what about extraneous music: inspirational stuff, recordings used by other modalities and so on? Again, it depends what your agenda is. If you are trying to finish a certain peak state process, or tracking down a definite trauma sequence, then we're talking about the one-in-a-million odds that Tal mentioned. But if you're trying to find out more about what your instincts mean, or you just want to explore the crossovers between modalities, then it can be fascinating. One note of warning, though: you don't know where you're going to land, and you don't know if the music will trigger long-buried traumas that you're not prepared to deal with. So I don't recommend this approach unless you have a bit of experience and a good support network, and a relative ease at getting back to the present. This is 'trolling' pure and simple, so it carries trolling's inherent risks. The music already rolling in your head doesn't present quite the same risks, because if you've been paying attention to it, then you're already triggered, it's not completely from left field.
I will close with a few examples of my own experiences with music:
I was doing a session with John's help. I was struggling, deep in a generational trauma, and John got what seemed to fit the category "absolute knowing" about music that would help. He put on this recording that I had never heard; a sombre, heartbreaking piece about wartime. All hell broke loose, and in minutes the trauma was gone. John verified this from the primary cell also. I asked, was that Gaia music? He said no. It was simply something that matched the emotional content of the stuck trauma.
This example is also told, with a different emphasis, in Peak States of Consciousness, Volume 1: I had been stuck in the healing of an issue for days, and coincidentally there was this stuck, insistent music. It was affecting me more than usual. It was from a recording of choral works, and my mind seemed desperate about keeping this going in my head at all times. I finally gave in, played the recording. It's as if I had been trying to climb a winding staircase while balancing a complex stack of boxes in my arms, and suddenly someone said, 'Here, let me hold this for you'. My mind didn't have to hold the music anymore; someone else had it. The whole issue opened up. The healing ran full speed. I ended with key aspects of my issue completely healed, and my mind free of that music. Again, it cannot have been Gaia music, because there were several songs; but the whole recording had a continuous emotional thread.
I had been working on obstacles to fusing my chakras. Stuck in my head was a repetitive part of Clément Janequin's Le Chant des Oiseaux. I tried to ignore it, but couldn't. I acknowledged that; and my next thought was about a rant I'd just written in my notebook: something about meddlesome middle-management types in general, and trouble with bureaucracy and red tape. Then I flashed back to the music, which was about the cuckoo: a bird that lays its eggs in others' nests and wastes everyone's time. Same theme, in a way. Was that what my mind brain was trying to tell me? I merged into the archetype of the middle manager - treating it as a projection. Immediately, I felt some tightness just below my heart. Middle management indeed: it was my solar plexus. An older structure, set in its ways, that had serious reservation about this new fusion. Yes, an aspect of the problem that I had been neglecting. The music faded to background noise, its work done. So that's an example where playing the recording and riding on the emotions of the melody would have led me astray: the music's relevance was strictly in its intellectual content. The relationship was characteristically obscure; I often get in only in hindsight.
I stumbled by chance on the long chant Gaté, Gaté from Robert Gass and On Wings Of Song, while I was exploring placental death. Someone happened to lend me the recording, and I was very attracted to it. It took me to my father's death, then to my placenta's. Don't use that one unless you know what you're doing. (A good example of the warning above.) In my case I had support and had intended to go there, so the sense of knowing was accurate in this case.
I had access to Grant's library of music from holotropic breathwork. I tried a recording titled Gaia Music. It was all British neo-pagan songs of praise; the range was all in the upper octaves, with only women's voices and high instruments. It sounded unbalanced, airy-fairy and profoundly annoying. I healed through the whole recording, including the feelings of annoyance and all my judgements about that sort of music. After an hour, I found myself with the upper half of my body extremely vaporous, and golden, and expanded! Somehow, the music had exposed my beliefs that my heart, mind and buddha brains were shallow and incomplete compared to the more - ahem - grounded lower brains. All my opinions about the music were in fact projections. I was reminded of the long tradition of 'chakra music' that uses different tone ranges to stimulate each chakra; the lower tones are used to awaken the lower chakras, and the range rises as you approach the crown.
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Copyright 2008 by Grant McFetridge
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