The Power of Music

Some types of music can make us relax. After a stressful work day, classical music, a certain type of jazz, or our favorite ballad singer can physically relax our bodies and take our minds off our daily grind – at least temporarily. On the other hand, loud, fast music with a strong beat can excite (or annoy) us. In fact, sometimes we prefer one type of music or artist, and other times it’s the last thing we want to hear.

So we’ve all experienced the physical and mental effects music has on us at one time or another. In fact, the mental effects are sometimes so strong, a few lines from a song can keep running through our minds no matter how hard we try to ignore them or stop them.

There are other ways music affects us emotionally. One of the most obvious ways is film music. Music signals us when something scary, threatening, or unpleasant is about to happen. If you close your eyes in an action, horror or thriller movie, you can tell what’s happening on the screen with just the music. The same goes for romance. Film composers like John Williams get paid big for their ability to shift your emotions from moment to moment. Movie theme music – like Williams’ Star Wars theme – can bring us almost out of the theater, our shoulders thrown back, determined to defeat our own enemy. (And sometimes we just wish someone would show up then so we could jump into action.) Our confidence has been affected, and that’s because of the film’s score and the film’s story and visuals.

So what happened between us and this music? What is the emotional hook music is about for all of us? There’s something going on here besides sound waves, the mechanics of the ear, and the synapses that work in the brain. Apparently, music and mood are closely related in some non-physical way.

Music also always has a sacred purpose. Most of our modern religious music is just a faint echo of other powers that music had in the dim past, though some of these ancient powers have only recently been revealed, which is one of the purposes of this site.

Used in certain ways, one of the main powers of music is to induce altered states of consciousness (ASC). This can be anything from a very relaxed state, to a much deeper state, where an unusual reality can be experienced. There are many ways to enter this state – meditation and psychotropic plants are just two – but music has always been one of the main points of entry into this state of mind. Nothing is needed but music and listeners. Not all music can do this, but some, like in Memories of Home, can encourage it.

What’s happening in this state? When I play this music to different groups of people, many report that they are on a mental and emotional journey or journey it seems

real enough for them. Calling this a dream seems utterly inadequate; said sight getting closer. But experience seems more accurate. These experiences are generally a place and time, if you will, that are distinct from ordinary waking reality. It’s not that music creates this reality or its content, because everything is different for everyone. Instead, music opens up a kind of inner space where certain experiences can occur.

If music itself doesn’t create content, then what or who does? Perhaps the easiest way to express the answer is to admit that we are all much more complex than we believe. Certain types of music have the power to pull away the inner curtain, so to speak, so that we become temporarily aware of a part of ourselves that is normally inaccessible. What is experienced in these moments is more like a message or a film from me to me – a film clip of the unconscious made conscious through music.

Modern psychology, from Freud onwards, has conceived the notion of the Unconscious – which is made up of both a collective as well as a personal aspect. It is usually described as an amorphous collection of repressed emotions, feelings, past experiences, archetypes (turning to Jung) and flotsam and other jetsam over which we seem to have no control. These are described as “locations” where our fears and phobias exist, which in some extreme cases force us to spiral out of control, when we are neurotically or pathologically overpowered by our fears.

The problem with this explanation is meaning. One of the results of listening to music played in these Mesopotamian tunings is that the experiences people report are invariably meaningful to them at the time they hear them. If what is unconscious in us is nothing but flotsam, then random experiences, rather than relevant and timely ones, are to be expected. There seems to be no doubt that these experiences are intelligently, and lovingly, I might add, presented to each listener to make what they will. These “movie clips” are usually presented symbolically, not literally, which is the language of our “subconscious”. Still, they are presented meaningfully, which implies a purpose, and therefore an intelligence, behind them.

We need not look far for the source of this intelligence. It’s just the unconscious part of us communicating with the conscious part. This unconscious part has many names: Higher Self, Guardian Angel, Intelligent Self, Inner Self, and so on. It is also called the link to the Creator and Oneness of all beings. But by whatever name we use it, to deny that it is intelligent is to deny experience. It is the source of our dreams, visions, gut feelings, intuitions and emotions.