Song of the Spine

CURRENT RESEARCH IN THE FIELDS OF PHYSICS and biology is confirming that the animate world comprises dynamic and sometimes complex energy systems. The human body is composed of subatomic, atomic, and molecular particles, all of which vibrate and oscillate at their own frequencies. Because each person is unique, all of us have our own distinct energy patterns.

In vibrational medicine, the human body is perceived as an unfolding and dynamic resonant system. When the components of the body are in harmony, there is an internal balance, or homeostasis, that produces a stable and vital state of health. When the parts of the body/mind/spirit are not in harmony, we experience dis-ease.

Homeostasis is a fundamental concept in modern biology, but the idea that inner harmony or balance is necessary to maintain health goes back to prehistoric times. The scientific version of the idea had its beginning in the 19th century, when the French physiologist Claude Bernard observed that the body fluids were of a constant composition. Bernard believed that this constancy was essential to living organisms. In the early 20th century, Walter B. Cannon, an American physiologist, coined the term homeostasis to describe self-regulating systems in living organisms. Cannon believed that the body tries to maintain an equilibrium, or balance, in all its systems.

Homeostasis operates at all levels within the living organism, from the molecular to the systemic. It regulates the concentrations of nutrients, gases, hormones, and other substances in the body fluids. The immune system and the nervous system continuously rely on homeostatic mechanisms. When an imbalance occurs, the body seeks to return to the original homeostatic conditions.

The various techniques used in vibrational medicine are designed to help the body return to its harmonious, homeostatic, healthy state. Chanting or toning, for example, produces a strong internal vibration that affects every cell and helps restore the natural harmony of the body, mind, and spirit.

Bone serves as the structure that provides support and stability, as the place where our blood cells are made, and as a storehouse for calcium and phosphorus. Bone also is a superb conductor of vibrations. Bones allow our bodies to be vehicles in which sound can penetrate to the deepest spaces within us, making changes on a cellular level and possibly regenerating our neural pathways.

In the skull, the sinus cavities create rich resonances that greatly enhance and strengthen the sounds generated by the vocal cords. The bones of the spine conduct vibrations up and down the length of the body. This flow of vibrations is disrupted when a subluxation of the spine exists. Correcting the subluxation allows the natural vibrational pattern to be restored; thus, the healing process can be accelerated by applying the correct vibrational frequency to the subluxated vertebrae. Often the subluxation can be corrected by simply applying a vibrating tuning fork to the “out of tune” vertebra.

Orthopedic surgeons have recently begun using oscillating electromagnetic fields to accelerate the healing of fractured bones. This is a beautiful and concrete example of how energetic vibrational messages carry information to specific tissues. In order for healing to occur, the electromagnetic vibrations of the “bone stimulators” must be set at a precise frequency. If the frequency is set incorrectly, the bone will weaken instead of heal.

The use of electromagnetic energy to stimulate the healing of broken bones was pioneered by Dr. Robert Becker, an orthopedic surgeon who was deeply interested in the effects of various kinds of energy fields on the human body. His most significant discovery was that the body has a direct-current electrical control system. He demonstrated that a person under anesthesia had markedly different direct-current potentials around the head. Even hypnotically anesthetized persons had changed electrical potentials. Becker reasoned that because hypnosis is an altered state of consciousness, there may be a correlation between states of consciousness and changes in the body’s direct-current potentials. He concluded that a direct-current system may be an alternative pathway for sending messages between the brain and any damaged bone or tissue. A carrier of the direct-current messages may be the glial cells. Becker found that the slow voltage changes observed in glial nerve cells (which support nerves) can be modified by applying a magnetic field, and he later demonstrated complete anesthesia in animals using only applied magnetic fields.

Several different kinds of vibrations are used in medical diagnosis and treatment. These vibrational ranges can be categorized as sound, ultrasound, and electromagnetic (including heat, light, and x-rays). The vibrations we call sound are low in frequency, from 20 to 20,000 Hz (cycles per second).

Ultrasound, or ultrasonic, waves are vibrations above 20,000 Hz. This frequency is outside the normal human hearing range, although some mammals, such as whales, can hear ultrasound frequencies up to about 50,000 Hz. Medical ultrasound devices can generate frequencies up to 20 Megahertz (20 million cycles per second).

Ultrasound is best known for its use in obstetrics and for diagnosis of tumors. Ultrasound pictures of the fetus are taken almost routinely to monitor prenatal development, particularly if there is reason for concern about abnormalities.

Ultrasound is used therapeutically to apply mechanical effects that generate heat in deep tissues. It is routinely used by physical therapists to reduce pain and swelling and to accelerate the healing of wounds.

Cataracts are a major cause of blindness in older people. Today, cataracts are removed surgically using ultrasound. In a procedure called phacoemulsification, the eye surgeon makes a tiny incision near the lens of the eye and inserts a tiny ultrasonic probe. The ultrasonic vibrations break up the lens and the cataract, and the debris is sucked out by the probe. The surgeon then inserts a plastic lens that is customized to give the patient normal vision.

Ultrasound also is used to break up kidney stones without invasive surgery. In this procedure, called lithotripsy, high-energy ultrasonic waves are directed at the kidney. Stones that have formed there absorb these waves and shatter into pieces that usually are small enough to pass through the urethra during normal urination. The presence of different kinds of tissue in the body, however, makes it difficult to precisely focus a high-energy ultrasound pulse. A new approach uses a technique called timereversed acoustics, which records the echo of a sound wave and reverses it before transmitting it back to where it originated. Because the returning ultrasound pulse is a mirror image of the echo, the tissues that had bent and distorted the echo will now guide the time-reversed pulse back to the location from which the echo originated.

In this procedure, which is also used to treat gallstones, the ultrasonic device first sends a low-energy pulse and then records the reflection from the kidney stone. The device then amplifies the pulse and reflects it back to the exact location that caused the reflection. The high-energy, time-reversed ultrasound pulse is automatically focused by the intervening tissues, causing the kidney stone to resonate and shatter. The device then repeats the process until all the stones have been destroyed.

Time-reversed ultrasound is also being used to identify and treat tumors in the heart or other tissues that are not functioning properly. The time-reversed pulse is capable of heating and destroying the malfunctioning tissue without causing damage to the surrounding heart cells. Research is now being conducted on the use of time-reversed ultrasound to destroy brain tumors, but special techniques are still needed to overcome the distortion of sound waves created by the skull.

It may be possible to develop similar methods for treating the spine. Various frequencies of sound or ultrasound can be pulsed to the spine, and the echoes captured and analyzed. It may be possible to target an individual vertebra with a specific frequency using a time-reversed signal. Perhaps we may discover that amplified timereversed sounds can be effective for treating conditions such as osteoporosis and degenerative joint disease.

Ultrasound also can be used to kill bacteria and other pathogens that are in a good sound-conducting medium, such as water. Researchers have developed a technique that destroys the spores of harmful bacteria such as anthrax when they are compressed between paper or cloth fibers. It is likely that ultrasound can be used to kill other pathogens. Further research is needed to identify the frequencies that cause various pathogens to self-destruct.

Light is another form of vibrational energy. Compared to sound and ultrasound, light vibrates at very high frequencies – millions of times higher, in fact. Today, lasers are increasingly being used for surgical and other medical treatments. Lasers emit a special type of light called coherent light, in which the waves move in step with one another, like soldiers marching in step. Lasers also can emit a single frequency of light, something that is very hard to achieve using other light sources. Laser light can be focused to a very small diameter, and its immense power can vaporize the object it is focused on. Ophthalmologists use lasers for surgical treatment of glaucoma and detached retinas, or to improve a person’s eyesight by correcting imperfections in the cornea. Surgeons also use laser scalpels to remove organs, such as gall bladders, that have become diseased.

Within the medical profession, the use of vibrational tools is still rather limited. Generally, powerful vibrations are used to image body parts or to destroy diseased parts. Some members of the medical profession, however, have begun to recognize the potential of using non-invasive, natural therapies. Oliver Sacks, a leading neurologist, has testified at a U.S. Senate committee about the healing power of music in treating neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s disease. He described one woman whose EEG readings usually were flat, almost comatose-like, but who would revert to a normal EEG pattern when she imagined she was playing music. Most of the day she sat motionless, but when she was seated at a piano, she would play beautifully for hours.

Dr. Sacks became aware of the potential healing power of music from his own experience. While hiking (actually, running away from a bull) he broke a leg that healed badly, and his mind refused to recognize that the dysfunctional leg was part of his body. Sacks spent many months consulting other physicians, most of whom simply ignored his problem. One day Sacks noted that his leg moved when he was listening to classical music, and he used that discovery to regain the use of his leg.

Another example of the power of low-energy vibrations comes from researchers at Harvard Medical School. Working with a vibrating pad from Afferent Corp., they demonstrated that vibrations applied to the soles of the foot improve a person’s ability to maintain balance. The vibrations were subthreshold, meaning they were almost imperceptible. Both young and elderly subjects exhibited better balance, but the effect was notably greater among the elderly. The team’s findings, published in the British medical journal The Lancet , indicate that vibrating shoe insoles may be beneficial for people whose sense of balance has begun to deteriorate. It is my hope that in the future, research will validate that each vertebra does indeed respond to a specific vibrational frequency, and that this knowledge will help to treat patients non-invasively and help restore harmony to the backbone of humanity.

Vibrations generated by crystal oscillators that propagate continuous waves create currents of flowing sand, which form rotational patterns that resemble spiral galaxies.