Dear Subscribers,

A few people have asked me to go on with my discussions of altered states of consciousness. This is actually difficult because a point comes when one must experience the dimensions and not just read about them. However, I will try something and see who follows and who skips this post.

First, let's start with a tiny review: we are writing and reading this in the third dimension and the fourth dimension is an idealized version of the self as recognized in the third dimension. If one could overcome all character defects, including the habit of not actually seeing things as they are, one would be in the fourth dimension. It is characterized by grace and refinement as well as an extraordinary measure of comprehension, appreciation for the challenges of the third dimension, and acceptance of the errors made when struggling in this third dimension.

By comparison, the fifth is really complicated and very few people are able to explore it effectively. In fact, my experience is that it is much easier to facilitate access to the sixth and even seventh dimensions than to explore the fifth.

Chakras and Dimensions

Let's assume for a moment that the dimensions correlate with the chakras. That does not seem at all improbable to me. If it were so, then the root chakra would relate to instinctual awareness and possess the skills required for survival. All animals have this chakra developed to a very high level whereas, it seems, humans have shifted attention "upwards" — somewhat upwards. Now, let's try to imagine a conversation between an animal and a human. As you know, I have been involved with an animal communicator for a few years now, but even before this transformative experience, I was fascinated by a statement made by a gorilla named Koko. She signs and when asked who is more intelligent, animals or humans, she responded saying that gorillas are more intelligent than humans. Her Ph.D. trainer did not reward her for the answer so she signed back that her trainer should "browse" but she did this by rubbing her forehead and adding an "s". This impressed me so deeply that I have deliberately sought to understand what my animals know that I don't seem to know. I am doubly motivated by the fact that when I accessed a very high level of consciousness where I could connect with my soul group, there were only two human members. As I tried to figure out my relationships with the others, a dolphin interjected that humans are not all they are cracked up to be.

Anyway, the next step in this journey for me was to study Savika because she was more or less autistic when I adopted her, but she was in possession of a veritable encyclopedia of smells. These were very interesting to her and while she has moved well beyond this now, her sense of smell is naturally far superior to mine. The point is not so much as who has better olfactory perceptions but precisely how much information and understanding is associated with smells. In her case, she is accessing a volume of knowledge that far exceeds mine but she uses different tools to do this.

This may seem like a digression but when I was in India, I had to design a culture-free IQ test. On the simplest level, this meant substituting bullock carts for cars but what I learned was that illiterate people read much more into images than someone like myself does. I draw sticks to represent objects whereas those who are illiterate pay enormous attention to tiny details that seem unimportant to me. It is hard to say whose thinking is more conceptualized but clearly, we are simply using different tools to understand our worlds and our existences within those worlds.

As we explore the realm of emotions, we find that it's actually quite rare to feel and think simultaneously. Anyone who tried to have a conversation about feelings knows how difficult it is to be understood when one person is feeling and the other purports to be thinking. I said that carefully because very little "thought" is much more than imitative repetition. This takes us to what some call "lower mind" or mind that is really not much more than an extension of cultural imprinting. This mind is full of biases stemming from the judgments our society makes about this and that in a sea of polarities, dare we say divisive polarities. The extent of imprinting is very much underestimated by most, but studies suggest that it occurs irrespective of deliberate measures and words.

Finally, we get to a place of wisdom which is more intuitive than mental and more compassionate than critical. This feels very creative for those who are escaping conditioning and beginning to see from another perspective, one that is calmer and more tolerant. So, from this we already know that fourth dimensional consciousness is blissful compared to third dimensional dissension. It also brings forward an immense amount of heart energy.

What seems to happen in the fifth dimension is that there is a resolve to fix what is broken so this means going back down into "lower" consciousness to repair the damage. As I said, this dimension is very difficult for most people. Moreover, the tasks required would probably seem impossible were it not for the unfoldment of compassion in the fourth dimension. In this dimension, I have seen lots of highly advanced technology for healing, but let me just give one example since it yields insight into why I have taken you on a musical journey.

The individual in question, not me, has had an interest in healing but not what we might call "profound" healing so much as conventional strategies. By this I mean that while there was a desire to spare people from suffering, the methods involved the use of modalities that often did harm. These were, of course, perfectly legal. Moreover, we must not think only in present day terms. We have to look at thousands of years of medical history and include superstitions as well as science. We also have to include bad science with the good so that the overview is comprehensive, not fragmented into congenial and appalling.

At the fifth dimensional level, the will to correct all mistakes is very intense but it is also, of course, complicated by the fact that one has to bring the fifth dimensional "technologies" into the third. However, the sense of remorse as well as the recognition of responsibilities is very great even though the difficulties are recognized. Also, though quite painful, I want to point out that good intentions in the past do not seem to absolve us of the complications of judgments made and actions taken. The magnitude of the errors is incredible and also devastating which is why most people can barely deal with the details discovered in this dimension.

As I keep reiterating, the traumas of one incarnation tend to persist until resolved. Normally, this involves a combination of some form of psychospiritual analysis and new experiences. Both are required. Otherwise, we bring the issues to the surface and then tuck them away again. We absolutely have to have new experiences that overwrite the "damaged" files. At any point, a single reinfection of an old wound could send someone, human or animal, into a tailspin and cause a regression to the former state, the one with the wounds and all the emotions associated with the wounds.

The fifth dimension is, however, more subtle than the third and it relies much more heavily on energies, all of which produce sound, albeit not always in what we would call audible frequencies. So, to heal on an energetic level, we can use sound.

Healing with Sound

Now, I will try to explain my own work in this area. First of all, the professional world of shall we call it "acoustical healing" is broadly divided into sound and music. With sound, there is often a mathematical structure so in addition to frequencies, there are assumptions made about waves, oscillations, pitches, harmonics, etc. Very few seem to factor in the overtones, but it is impossible to produce a sound without an overtone. Many of these schools of thought are very ancient, but some of the main names in recent Western history are Hans Jenny and Peter Guy Manners. Each has had an influence on countless younger pioneers in this area.

In music healing, there are also different schools of thought. Some put the emphasis on relaxation, patterns, or rhythm whereas my own approach is based on inspiration, not technical details. In all "great" music, there is inspiration that takes shape in compositions. Only later is the music performed. At different levels of musical proficiency, the technical challenges may interfere with the interpretation of the inspiration behind the music. I will digress a moment and then return.

As you know, my best friend is a harpist, both composer and performer. She graduated from Eastman and is both musically literate and proficient. She plays a concert grand harp. About 15 years ago, I went to recital in Santa Fe of a troubadour harpist whose music was very simple in comparison to what I was used to hearing. He was offering an evening of music therapy. I found it monotonous so I did what I usually do when bored: I people watched and what I saw was astounding. People were filling in gaps themselves, using their own input to complete what seemed like empty spaces to me. For instance, one person in the audience was singing (not audibly) to the music, and she had a gorgeous voice on the etheric level. Another was surrounded by angels who were helping her with a health problem. It was absolutely amazing, and it was a good lesson for me because clearly the inspiration was "coherent" even though the music itself was hardly much more than a cut above nursery rhyme tunes. So, the issue is not complexity but coherence or relevance.

This begins to explain why I can be quite picky about music, both the musical selection and the performance of the music. I am used to choosing music for therapy that assists individuals to explore and repair. It would not therefore be appropriate to risk using an inferior sound system or recording.

Sound and the Aura

On a technical level, sound works on the etheric body and it affects all the lines in the aura and their correspondences in the physical body, the nervous system. This begins to explain why music can be used to improve memory, both the well-reported Mozart Effect as well as recall from other incarnations. However, it also suggests that music can be helpful or hurtful. I did expect some backlash over what I wrote about jazz, but the problem is not whether or not jazz is fun but what syncopation does to synaptic responses. I am not suggesting that people give up jazz, rather that those who do like jazz balance their energies with something that allows the nervous system to regroup.

This is actually profound so I will add a bit more before posting this.

My points have little do with musical preferences, which, of course, everyone has. I am concerned with the impact of music on the aura and on consciousness.

Music Therapy

Typically, I begin sessions by asking people what they like. One of my students (also a colleague), sent her son to me. He said, "Any tribal drumming would be fine." Unfortunately, I didn't have any recordings that fit that description so he said, "No problem, how about Rachmaninoff." I was astonished at how easily he got from the jungle to something more familiar to me. As it turned out, the Rachmaninoff worked perfectly, and he was able to achieve a very high level of integration which included disentangling himself from certain peer behaviors that had encroached on his personal creativity.

Very few people wrote me after posting on eccentricity and music. The message I am getting is that I probably should not continue, but I will risk a bit more by proposing that music is normally a mixture of ideational material expressed in the form of notes and rhythm which is essential to the organization of ideas. Imagine a person who not only does not punctuate his or her speech but who instead of speaking words spells out thoughts in Morse code. You know, in the days of telegrams, we wrote "STOP" at the end of sentences because otherwise, the stream became incoherent. So, my theory is that the downward flow of inspiration would be too intense and therefore incoherent if it were not for the rhythm used to organize the parts into a whole. Elsewhere, I have referred to this as the calibration of spirit by matter.

Eccentricity

Now, we go back to the concept of eccentricity and seek to distinguish different and irrelevant from different and interesting. Then, we go on to ask whether or not the differences we hear promote insight and/or coherence? Try to keep in mind that Uranus is always ultramodern and is seeking to anchor new ideas, but the ideas will not anchor unless they are given adequate form in which to manifest. Now, if I listen to any of the pieces I suggested in the previous email, I hear the parts very clearly, much more clearly than in most performances, and this gives coherence to the ideas behind the music and allows the inspiration and creativity to mature in the listener. That, however, is a personal response and it's entirely possible that some people have perceptual mechanisms that allow the same level of integration at a much faster pace.

We actually have the same issues with all our senses. Have you ever wanted to slow down a film. Think for a moment about the ice skater and his spins or the ballet dancer and the leaps. Haven't you wanted to stop the action for a second? What about the close ups of flowers or time-lapsed photography that allows you see processes you would otherwise miss. Music has similar potential and similar risks that a detail will not register because the performance did not stage that nuance artistically enough for us to assimilate the idea. My experience is that sometimes the unconscious is hearing more than the conscious mind, but this is not necessarily the case.

Like many who are passionate, I love pyrotechnics and virtuoso performances . . . so long as the beauty and integrity of the music is preserved. Sometimes, razzle dazzle is just razzle dazzle and it serves only to excite, not to illuminate. Still, it can be fun even if not actually useful.

Listening

It is also clear to me that that those who are not accustomed to listening as intensely as I do might not hear what I hear. However, the impact on the aura is comparable even if there is no internal ah ha experience.

Many, many years ago, a patient came with an aggressive cancer and very poor prognosis. She was elegantly dressed and a bit formal. About halfway through the music therapy, I decided to use the Sibelius Violin Concerto. Almost immediately, her condition began to shift. I was actually able to feel the lumps in her body "melting". As most of you know, I have birds. Anyone who handles birds probably has a light touch. With my "feather" fingers, I could feel the tumors disappearing. The client said, "That was a stroke of genius that you switched the music when you did." At the time, it was merely a judgment call. She was not moving beyond the familiar so to penetrate what we have come to understand as the Ring-Pass-Not, a risk was warranted.

Her explanation followed. She was an heiress who married a man who — from her perception — was only interested in her money. He was not only disinterested in her as a person but he had some odd proclivities that had not been divulged to her prior to marriage. She was embarrassed about the dreadful mistake she had made, but the schizophrenic tensions in the music allowed her to be honest about her situation and recognize what it would take to bring harmony into her life. In short, the risk I took with the music was more than rewarded by the very fast realignment of her own energies.

Keep in mind that a stage is set for these sessions. There is discussion, anticipation, surrender of expectations, and then submission to the music. The music cannot really insert content, but if the content is there, the music may help to elicit what is there.

Melody and Rhythm

Over the years, I have observed and observed and tentatively concluded that the ideas expressed in music are basically masculine whereas the rhythm is feminine. If the flow is not mastered, the message itself is massacred. When you dance or listen to music, try observing that point of balance where the ideas and tempo come into perfect relationship. At that time, you might experience a kind of euphoria, almost an immortality . . . because, if the truth be known, the Universe is a musical creation and the art of participating in this marvelous work is definitely an art!

Many blessings,

Ingrid

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