Song of the Spine

We Chiropractors work with the subtle substance of the soul. We release the imprisoned impulse – the tiny rivulet of force – that emanates from the mind and flows over the nerves to cells and stirs them into life. We deal with the majestic power that transforms common food into living, loving clay; that robes the Earth with beauty, and hues and scents the flowers with the glory of the air.

In the dim, dark, distant long ago when the sun first bowed to the morning star, this power spoke and there was life; it quickened the slime of the sea and dust of the Earth and drove the cell to union with its fellows in countless living forms. Through eons of time, it finned the fish and winged the bird and fanged the beast. Endlessly it worked, evolving its forms until it produced the crowing glory of them all. With tireless energy it blows the bubble of each individual life and then silently, relentlessly dissolves the form, and absorbs the spirit into itself again....

“The Truth,” poetically stated by B. J. Palmer,
son of the founder of Chiropractic

WHEN THE HUMAN BODY is viewed as a dynamic and unfolding resonant system of vibrations, one can compare it to an orchestrated symphony. Every cell, every molecule, every tissue, every bone dances with a specific frequency and will produce a certain “tone” when stimulated. Thus, vibrational medicine works at a deep, cellular level where molecular properties are being changed by vibrations. Keep in mind that it is not just our bodies that are affected by vibration, but also our minds, spirits, and etheric fields.

In physics, vibrations are a fundamental property of energy and matter. Light is made up of photons that vibrate at very high frequencies. What we call heat is nothing more than the vibration of atoms and molecules. Even subatomic particles such as bosons and quarks and all the other elementary building blocks of matter vibrate.

Vibration in the form of sound waves played a role in the creation of the universe as we know it. Recent satellite images of the far edge of the universe show that temperature variations shortly after the Big Bang were created by sound waves in the primordial plasma, and these temperature variations led to the creation of the first stars and galaxies.

Even more striking is the discovery of sound waves being emitted by a supermassive black hole in the center of the Perseus cluster. An x-ray image taken by NASA shows a regular pattern of pressure, or acoustic, waves in the hot gas surrounding the black hole. The sound waves are created not by the black hole itself but by the spiraling hot gases on the periphery. The frequency of the sound waves is one pulse every 10 million years (a sound only God can hear!), and this turns out to be a constant B-flat with a loudness similar to that of human speech. Where regularity in the acoustic pressure waves exists, there is a corresponding musical tone. The sound waves die out rapidly, however, and their pitch is far, far below human hearing – 57 octaves below the middle-C on a piano. Even though we cannot hear it, the sound emitted by the Perseus cluster is the deepest note yet found in the universe.

Astrophysicists expect to find other black holes that are generating sound waves. In the meantime, scientists Phil Uttley and Ian McHardy are trying to gain an understanding of x-ray emissions from black holes by transcribing the emissions into musical notes, with a higher pitch representing a higher x-ray output. The pattern of notes has a musical quality, they say. Changes in notes and pitch are similar to those in most kinds of music. The note equivalents of x-ray emissions from small stellar black holes vary on a time scale of seconds, whereas those from supermassive black holes vary on a scale of millions of seconds. Another kind of music has been detected in the magnetic fields of our solar system. Astronomers call it flicker noise, and some call it a kind of background music.

Acoustic waves ripple in all directions for thousands of miles across the surface of our sun when violent solar flares erupt. Even the Earth hums a tune. Sound waves inside the Earth have been detected with seismographs, but scientists are unsure how they are created. Some have proposed that sound waves in the atmosphere are transmitted into the Earth, while others say that the pounding of ocean waves may be the source. The subsurface sound waves emit a very low frequency, about one-hundredth of a Hertz – far below the human threshold of hearing.

On Earth, the movement of atoms and molecules orchestrates life. There are special molecules that play the role of messenger in our bodies. The vital organs release into the bloodstream a variety of hormones that regulate our body functions. The immune system releases antibodies and other molecules that detect and attack pathogens, and the nervous system releases molecules that trigger electrochemical impulses in nerve cells. Many parts of the body produce tiny molecules called cytokines that serve as messengers to other parts of the body and to the brain.

But chemical and electrical messages are not the only means of communication found in our body. There also are resonant systems that act on the body as a whole. The 12 meridians of Chinese acupuncture are energetic pathways throughout the body that connect to the vital organs and link specific body functions. The meridians allow an acupuncturist to treat vital organs from parts of the body that are distant from the organs being treated. Another communication system within the body is based on sympathetic vibrations. The beating of the heart, the ebb and flow of cerebrospinal fluid, and the expansion and contraction of the diaphragm all produce mechanical, acoustic waves – vibrations that flow throughout the body.

Spiraling gases near a supermassive black hole in the center of the Perseus cluster (top) generate sound waves that are a constant B-flat, but 57 octaves lower than middle-C. Artist’s rendering (bottom) delineates the sound waves (NASA images).

Many therapists make use of resonance and vibratory energy, whether their treatments are based on touch, aroma, heat, light, or sound, as James L. Oschman states eloquently in his illuminating book Energy Medicine, The Scientific Basis :

A massage therapist touches and rubs the tissue, a herbalist applies an extract of a plant, an acupuncturist applies a needle, magnet, electrical stimulation, or a laser beam, a shiatsu practitioner applies deep pressure, a practitioner of the Rolf technique stretches a layer of fascia, a sound therapist vibrates the tissue, a medical doctor uses a pulsating electromagnetic field, etc. The common denominator in all of these approaches is a living matrix that is exquisitely designed to absorb the information encoded in different kinds of vibratory energy and convert it into signals that are readily transmitted through the tensegrous semiconducting living matrix continuum.

Artist’s rendering of vibrational patterns created by spoken vowels (from Cymatics, by Hans Jenny; see photo on page 51 ).

Harold Saxton Burr was a pioneer in the study of energy fields in living systems. After earning his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1916, he remained there as a professor of anatomy for more than 40 years. His initial research centered on the nervous system, but after he found that he could measure and map the electric fields around living things with a standard voltmeter, he devoted his life to developing electrometric techniques that could be used in medical diagnosis and treatment. He demonstrated that a voltmeter could map the “electro-dynamic” field around every living thing, from mice to man, from seeds to trees. He called his discovery the fields of life, or L-fields. He believed that mapping distortions in a person’s L-field can be useful in diagnosing pathological illnesses such as cancer, even before symptoms begin to develop.

In one study, Dr. Burr found a consistent, steady increase in the measured voltage in mice with developing cancer, whereas the control group showed no significant changes. Another study, at Bellevue Hospital in New York, detected a shift in voltage gradient, suggesting a malignancy, in 102 women who were being examined for ovarian cancer. Subsequent surgery confirmed 95 cases of malignancy.

Burr, working with psychiatrists, demonstrated that electrometric techniques are useful for distinguishing between normal and abnormal mental functions. He also showed that voltage recordings can indicate when ovulation is about to occur in women. Finally, he was able to measure voltage changes during the healing of wounds and showed that the changes could be correlated with the phases of healing.

Burr offered this explanation of L-fields: “Our bodies ‘keep in shape’ through ceaseless metabolism and changes of material. The mystery has been solved: the electro-dynamic field of the body serves as a matrix or mold which preserves the ‘shape’ or arrangement of any material poured into it, however often the material may be changed.”

Life fields “regulate and control the creature whatever it may be and its aims are wholeness, organization and continuity,” wrote Burr. “There is an organizational quality to these fields and they actually give rise to our physical bodies. If there is a mistake in this blueprint, a physical disease results. If you correct the blueprint you can correct physical disease.”

In the 1940s, Reinhold Voll, a German physician, developed a device to measure the electrical parameters of acupuncture points. The Voll machine has been widely used to test responses to homeopathic remedies. Voll believed that tissue necrosis and organ degeneration decrease conductance along acupuncture paths, while inflammation increases conductance. Two British clinicians in the 1970s found that electrical conductance at the liver acupuncture point on the knees was 18 times greater in patients with inflamed livers than in subjects with no liver dysfunction. Another clinical study showed that electrical conduction at lung acupuncture points was 30 percent lower in patients with lung cancer than in healthy persons. Recently, computerized EDI (electro-dermal information) devices have been developed that are being used to identify homeopathic and vibrational remedies that correct imbalances that cause disease.

Homeopathy is regarded by many holistic healers as a form of vibrational medicine. In spite of the scorn heaped on homeopathy by most conventional medical practitioners in the U.S., its popular use continues to grow, and many stores now conveniently carry over-the-counter homeopathic remedies. Why so many people find that homeopathic remedies really work remains a mystery to the medical profession. Although many hospitals in the United States practiced homeopathic medicine in the late 1800s, “allopathic” physicians, who believed that drugs and surgery were the only legitimate forms of treatment, formed the American Medical Association (AMA) primarily to prevent the use of homeopathic medicine. Bylaws of the AMA prohibited fraternization with homeopathic practitioners or use of homeopathic remedies.

Samuel Hahnemann, a German physician, is credited with developing in the mid-1800s the healing principle that treating like with like can cure illnesses. This theory is similar in principle to vaccinations, which today are used worldwide. Homeopathic remedies usually are made from a plant or other substance in nature that produces in humans the symptoms of a particular illness. For instance, for colds and runny noses, a homeopathic remedy is made from onions.

In homeopathy, a potentially harmful substance is transformed into a medicine for healing by progressive dilution, until what remains is just the essence of the original substance. That essence contains the “memory” or energetic vibrations of the original substance. This idea is contrary to Western logic and medicine, since Western physicians believe that the larger the dosage, the stronger the effects. The idea that “less is more” is difficult for many people to grasp, despite the growing number of clinical studies that show that homeopathic remedies really work.

Often in homeopathy, the greater the dilution, the more potent the effect. A 100 x (one hundredfold) dilution is considered to be more potent than a 10 x dilution. How is it possible for a highly diluted remedy that contains only a few molecules of the original healing substance to be effective?

Physicists may eventually provide an answer. Molecules vibrate: they wiggle and jiggle. These vibrations are passed on to the surrounding molecules, transferring what physicists call “information.” In addition, when a molecule absorbs an electromagnetic wave, it vibrates even more, sometimes so much that it emits another electromagnetic wave. This means that molecules may interact like a radio transmitter and receiver. Electromagnetic waves emitted by one molecule can be picked up by molecules “tuned in” to that frequency. If our radio telescopes are capable of detecting very weak electromagnetic waves from molecules billions of light years away from Earth, it is not improbable that our bodies have the means to detect signals emitted by only a few molecules.

The signals may be carried by certain electrons within a molecule. Physicists are only now learning how to manipulate a property of the electron known as “spin,” which indicates its quantum state – either “up” or “down.” It has been demonstrated that the spin of an electron can be transported without any loss of energy at room temperature. That may mean that “information” can be transferred by the electron from one molecule to another without energy loss. This emerging field of study is called spintronics. Scientists at Stanford University are developing a sensitive electronic spin detector and hope to develop electronic devices in which spin current will flow without any energy loss.

Another answer is that homeopathic remedies do not work through the same physiological pathways that are activated by conventional drugs. Rather, homeopathy works by activating the resonant frequency of the patient. Jacques Benveniste, a homeopathic researcher in France, has provided exciting and dramatic evidence of electromagnetic resonance in dynamic living systems. He played recordings of the vibrational signals (in the human voice range) of typical messenger molecules in the human body and found that the messenger’s normal receptors responded as if that molecule was actually present.

Even DNA may act as a resonant antenna. Rollin McCraty and Glen Rein of the HeartMath Institute in California (HeartMath.org) reported that DNA throughout the body receives and transmits information encoded within the heart’s electrical rhythm. Information also appears to be contained within the oscillations of DNA. McCraty and his colleagues have examined the effects of rhythmic coherence on the molecular level in a living matrix and concluded that something like a piezoelectric effect may be present. The piezoelectric effect is reversible – pressure can be used to generate electricity, or electricity can be used to generate pressure.

Among other researchers, physicist Dan Winter has shown that there is a standing wave resonance of the heart and that physiological measurements are possible showing cardiac coherence (harmonically ordered – smooth sine waves). Winter has also created a beautiful array of computer graphics displaying the association of musical wave forms with emotions.

Our bodies are filled with oscillating fields – heartbeats, breath, brainwaves, the cerebrospinal fluid, vertebral acoustics. Our bodies also generate electromagnetic fields that communicate in direct currents, as demonstrated by Dr. Robert Becker and others. Becker noted that the body’s direct-current system has a daily rhythm that seems to be tied to changes in the Earth’s magnetic field.

Becker went on to show that applying external direct-current electricity accelerates the healing process in broken bones and tissues. He demonstrated that complete anesthesia can be induced by applying a magnetic field strong enough to change the activity of glial nerve cells. Becker’s work laid the groundwork for a new field called neurotechnology, which uses electrical and magnetic impulses to directly stimulate specific sets of nerves to reduce chronic pain, to prevent epileptic seizures or Parkinson tremor, and to restore hearing. Other researchers have shown that applied electromagnetic fields can induce sleep, and a number of electrosleep devices are being marketed.

In 1952, the German physicist W.O. Schumann mathematically calculated that the cavity between the Earth’s surface and the ionosphere, about 25 miles up, should have standing electromagnetic waves at certain frequencies. This is the same cavity that Nikola Tesla attempted to harness in the early 1900s. He tried to transmit electrical power through the air by activating the resonance of the cavity.

In 1954, the first electromagnetic standing wave in this cavity was detected and measured. Subsequently, additional standing-wave frequencies were detected. The strongest is at 7.8 Hz, with others at 14, 20, 26, 33, 39, and 45 Hz, the latter being the weakest. It is important to understand that these values are averages of readings from around the planet, and that the values vary daily by about 0.5 Hz. The standing waves become stronger when there is intense lightning activity. (Interestingly, a lightning strike generates an electromagnetic pulse that travels around the world about 7.4 times in one second.) The standing waves are also thought to be affected by sunspot activity, which peaks every 11 years.

These electromagnetic waves are now called Schumann resonances. The strongest standing wave, at 7.8 Hz, is thought to provide a timing signal to cells, which they use to maintain homeostasis, or optimal health. Indeed, several research studies have shown that all living cells resonate at the 7.8-Hz frequency. This Schumann resonance is also believed to have a direct effect on brain activity. In healthy humans, brainwaves at the 7.8-Hz frequency are associated with creative daydreaming or relaxed wakeful awareness. To many vibrational healers, the Schumann 7.8-Hz resonance acts like a tuning fork for human health.

Although we are bathed in the Earth’s natural electromagnetic pulsations, we are also bombarded by stronger man-made electromagnetic waves. We are surrounded by electric wires that emit 50- or 60-Hz waves. Indoors and outdoors, we are immersed in high-frequency radio waves. Many believe this constant electromagnetic noise upsets the normal functioning of cells and systems in the body. We may be especially vulnerable to these permeating fields when we are in close proximity to microwave ovens, computers, and cell phones. Radiation from these devices may disrupt the body’s direct-current communication system. I believe these vibrations, even though we do not hear them, do have a detrimental effect on our overall health.

The beating heart creates a standing wave of 7 Hz in the skeleton and skull, according to studies by Itzak Bentov, who summarized his findings in a chapter titled “Micromotion of the Body as a Factor of the Development of the Nervous System” in the book Kundalini, Evolution and Enlightenment , edited by John White. Using a device called a ballistocardiograph, Bentov found that a feedback exists between the heart and aortic bifurcation that creates a standing wave. During deep meditation, the timing of the pressure pulses traveling down the aorta is altered until it is in phase with the reflected pressure pulses from the bifurcation, and a standing wave with a frequency of 7 Hz is achieved.

This oscillation is transmitted to the skeleton, spine, and skull. The standing wave causes the brain to vibrate, creating several standing waves, which stimulate the ventricles and the sensory cortex of the brain. Bentov’s innovative experiments led him to conclude that meditation activates five oscillators – the heart and four others – and locks them into rhythm: “When an individual achieves a deep state of meditation, breathing becomes slow and shallow and the heart activity becomes synchronized so as to create a resonant vibrational link between the heart and the brain. The oscillating electrical circuit within the brain becomes established only after gray matter along the sensory cortex has become completely polarized in a circular stimulus loop.” This in turn produces a pulsating magnetic field around the head.

Bentov has clearly demonstrated that the nervous system can be entrained by the beating of the heart, and that resonant vibrational links exist throughout our bodies. Dan Winter came to a similar conclusion.

The true nature of the heart was revealed to me when I took a dissection anatomy class. I had separated some individual heart cells and saw that each cell beat independently of the others. But when I placed the heart cells closer together, they began beating as one. Their ability to synchronize and beat as one demonstrated to me the power of sympathetic vibrations.

To summarize, we have seen that the human body resonates to vibrations in ways that can promote healing. Some vibrations affect the body as a whole, while others affect only specific parts of the body. Vibrations are capable of altering individual cells and even molecules such as DNA. Furthermore, the body seems to be able to convert mechanical vibrations into wave-like electrical impulses, or convert electromagnetic waves into mechanical vibrations (the piezoelectric effect). Communication within the direct-current system discovered by Becker appears to be faster than that in the nervous system. All these research findings are puzzling to allopathic medical practitioners, who remain firm in their faith in drugs and surgery. Slowly, over the past several decades, a new and radical theory describing how the body and brain function has emerged. This new theory is based on the principle of holography and the idea that the brain and the body use a holographic process to recognize and to store information.

Holograms are unusual in that every part of the hologram contains the same information as the whole. In other words, you can cut the hologram into many pieces and each piece contains all the images that are contained in the hologram, but the smaller pieces will have less detail or definition.

Holography is a method of photography using a laser to provide coherent light – that is, light in which all of the waves are in order or synchronized. The beam of coherent light from a laser is split and part of the beam goes directly to the film. The second part of the beam is directed to the object to be holographed, and the reflected light is directed to the film through lenses. This scattered light is no longer coherent and interferes with the coherent beam that had been directed to the film. The resulting interference pattern is captured by the film, which contains all the information needed to reconstruct the image of the object. The astounding nature of the holograph is that the reconstructed image appears to be solid and three-dimensional.

Anything that behaves as a wave can be used to create an interference pattern. For example, when ripples on a pond cross other ripples moving in different directions, they create visible interference patterns. Both sound and electromagnetic waves, including light, can be used to create these patterns.

Carl Pribram, a neuroscientist at Stanford University in the 1960s, began thinking that memory may be stored in the brain in a holographic manner using wave fronts created by the firing of neurons. These wave fronts ripple through the brain, crossing each other and forming many interference patterns. It is these patterns that form the basis of memory, according to Pribram.

Before Pribram developed his holographic model, brain researchers generally believed that memory was stored in specific locales in the brain. Over the decades, however, many researchers, including Pribram, failed to find supporting evidence for the localization of memory. The renowned neuropsychologist Karl Lashley attempted to find the areas in brains of rats that contained memories related to learning to run a maze to get to food. To Lashley’s surprise, no matter what portion of the brain he removed, some memory still remained. Even with massive parts of the brain removed, the rats continued to remember, although their motor skills were grossly impaired and they struggled awkwardly through the maze.

Pribram, who worked with Karl Lashley for a time, was puzzled by the evidence against localization of memory. Pribram reviewed medical cases involving patients who had had portions of the brain removed and found that there were no cases of selective memory loss. The patients’ memories generally became hazy, but their memories were not lost completely. Even removal of a large portion of the temporal lobe did not create gaps in a person’s memory. This further puzzled Pribram because Wilder Penfield, a neurosurgeon in Canada, appeared to have discovered in the 1920s that specific locations in the brain had specific memories. While performing open-brain surgery on epileptics, Penfield was able to evoke a specific memory in a patient by touching a certain spot on the temporal lobe. Thus stimulated, the patient seemed to relive an experience, much like movie flashback. When Pribram tried to duplicate Penfield’s findings, this time in normal, non-epileptic patients, he was unable to evoke any specific memories.

To Pribram it now seemed that memories were not localized but were somehow distributed throughout the brain. When he became aware of holography (after reading an article in Scientific American ), Pribram realized how distributed memory might work.

In his search through the scientific literature, Pribram came across the work of a Russian scientist, Nikolai Bernstein, who had discovered that physical movements are encoded in our brains as wave forms. Bernstein painted white dots on the black leotards of dancers and took movies of them in motion. In the films, the white dots appeared against a black background, so he could see how the movements flowed. To quantify his findings, he used Fourier analysis, a mathematical technique, to analyze the waveforms. According to the Fourier principle, every shape, no matter how complex, can be assembled or woven from a sum of pure sine waves.

Much to his surprise, Bernstein found that the Fourier analysis revealed wave forms with patterns that allowed him to predict the next movement within a fraction of an inch. Pribram recognized that Bernstein may have discovered how movement is stored in the brain. If the brain stores movement as wave forms, breaking them down into frequency components could help explain how we learn physical tasks. As Pribram put it, “The brain can instantly resonate to and thus recognize wave forms. Once recognized, the inverse transform allows them to be implemented into behavior.”

The holographic theory applies not only to human learning, but also to memory and learning in animals, as well as memory in bacteria and lower animals that do not have a brain. Some recent studies of oscillation in cellular processes indicate that holographic information may be processed at the cellular and molecular levels.

The crossover design of the human visual and auditory systems suggests that something like holographic processing is occurring. The left visual field in each of the eyes is connected to the right side of the brain, while the right visual field goes to the left side of the brain. In the auditory system, some of the nerves in the ear are connected to the same side of the brain, and the remainder go to the opposite side. This is similar to the split-beam approach in holographic photography. In the case of the visual and auditory systems, the nerve impulses from one set of nerves act as reference beam to the impulses from the other side, resulting in a holographic interference pattern.

George J. Goodheart Jr., the chiropractor who originated the concept of applied kinesiology, proposes that the brain keeps a complete holographic image of every aspect of the body, and that if information from a local area does not match the holographic image, the brain takes notice. For instance, when the messages from a foot create a holographic pattern that does not match the one held by the brain, the cause is likely to be some kind of dysfunction. Goodheart has described how his holographic model can be useful in treating patients.

The holographic model also may provide an explanation for consciousness, for how we are able to be aware of ourselves. The holographic model makes it unnecessary to search for the seat of consciousness, or the location of a memory. I believe that consciousness is not just the result of neurons in firing in our brain, but rather an awareness that it resides in every cell and is manifested within all the systems of our bodies. This becomes more apparent when we view the body as a dynamic, energetic, interactive system.

James L. Oschman, in his book Energy Medicine , observes that when we take into account

… the biomagnetic fields of the organs and peripheral neurons, semiconduction through the cellular and subcellular structures associated with them, and the electromagnetic signatures of all the vibrating molecules within the cells and tissues, and we begin to see a dynamic picture of the energetic body as a whole. What we refer to as ‘mind’ and ‘consciousness’ may encompass the totality of communications and regulations in the body, the electromagnetic signatures of countless molecules and atoms, and the energy fields they entail. ... Emerging concepts of consciousness have profound therapeutic implications.

Standing waves are found throughout nature and within our bodies. The heart, the brain, and the spine are oscillating systems based on simple, harmonic standing waves. When the vibratory fields in the heart, brain, and nervous system are in phase, augmenting each other harmoniously using the heart and the vertebrae as conductors, coherent messages can then be produced, culminating in consciousness.