Geral Blanchard, LPC, is a psychotherapist who is university trained in psychology and anthropology. Formerly of Wyoming and currently residing in Iowa, Geral travels the world in search of ancient secrets that can augment the art and science of healing. From Western neuroscience to Amazonian shamanism, he has developed an understanding of how to combine old and new healing strategies to optimize recovery, whether from psychological or physical maladies.
MDMA and Sound Healing
Geral T. Blanchard • Dec 27, 2021
The form of “God” is energy. And the entire universe is alive, literally singing with vibrational forms of faintly audible energy.
Humans are a part of this immense choral group and can more fully unite with it by merging attitudinally and tonally.
Of the primary elements in the universe, each is associated with our many (perhaps 30+) senses: 1) fire is associated with touch and sight, 2) water is correlated with taste, 3) earth is linked with smell, and 4) wind is coupled with touch and hearing. Additionally, according to the Upanishad texts of the Vedic era, there is 5) vibration, the most subtle of all elements which is referred to as akash and linked with hearing too.
Within some ancient cosmologies on up to quantum physics, the thoughts of our minds are said to make sounds. And mind, with these attendant sounds, creates matter. Further, with clean and clear intentions, or desires, we combine with the vibratory chorus of the universe from which all matter arises and which makes our vast home even bigger, better, and more complex.
Ancient philosophy and science contend that the most fundamental sounds of Nature are recorded, or stored, as vibratory codes which were interpreted by the Siddhas (a Hindu word for shaman) as mantras. Chanting a mantra is a very deliberate act with a specific intention for an outcome. And when people chant or hum along with musical mantras, their internal life harmonizes, and with it comes improved physical and mental health. This can create a variety of outcomes from a strengthened immune system to the reduction of pain, including everything from joint and intestinal discomfort to the elimination of migraine headaches.
In recent history, quantum physicists have proposed that there is a supercharged backdrop of energy that fills up space – what was once thought of as empty parts of the universe. Humans sense and interact with all the action of subatomic particles (consciously or unconsciously) and the movement of any one drives the others ahead in what can be envisioned as quantum waves. All of these continuous movements represent an ongoing “memorization of the universe,” information that is never lost in “space.” The emergent nature of the universe – this ever-expanding knowledge repository – keeps everything growing and evolving with a potential for progress we cannot yet fully comprehend.
Amidst this intertwined universe filled with vibratory energy, there are things we can do on an individual basis to sing ourselves, and this tiny planet, forward.
Did you know that hearing music can alter your brain chemistry, increasing norepinephrine levels that are associated with a sense of wellbeing? Add to that effect by intoning (merging) your voice with a group of individuals singing a mantra (sacred sound). Connecting to something larger than yourself, using Tibetan mantras for example, can quiet the mind and take you to alpha or theta brain wave states when, fortunately, the dominant ego produced chatter of our left hemisphere slows down. At that time the right hemisphere increasingly comes online connecting you with the Greater Whole that surrounds the human self.
While humming along or singing the words of an ancient mantra, note the vibratory feeling in your throat, cranial brain, and throughout the body. Once you are more aligned and in sync with everything vibrating around you, inner peace unfolds. This is sound medicine. This is also what is meant by energy medicine or vibrational medicine, according to Richard Gerber, M.D., author of A Practical Guide to Vibrational Medicine. Or as Native Americans would say, it is good medicine. This is healing originating through the power of the mind while being propelled by sound.
If you intend to keep the growth from your MDMA session alive, give a listen, with eyes closed, to the sounds of the soundtrack from Mantras from Tibet. An immersion of as little as ten or fifteen minutes can enshroud an unpleasant day and shift your mind and body (bodymind) into harmonic resonance with the world around you. You will notice it and others will too.
*********
“We have now discovered that there is no such thing as matter; it is all just different rates of vibration designed by an unseen intelligence.”
- Max Plank, physicist, upon accepting the Nobel Prize for Physics
“A person doesn’t hear sound only through the ears; he hears sound through every pore of his body. It permeates the entire being.”
- Hazrat Inayat Khan, Sufi musician, healer, and mystic
“In our culture, one of our biases is that newer information and techniques are always better than older belief systems and technologies. Mounting evidence supports a variety of ancient healing systems based upon views of physiology very different from the current mainstream healing paradigm. Perhaps revisiting ancient wisdom may supply information that could result in a revolution in the field of medicine and healing. Ancient approaches to understanding disease and body healing often viewed illness from the perspective of the human spirit, or the body’s life-force energy. These somewhat mystical viewpoints may hold the key to understanding why people become ill and how they can regain their health.”
- Richard Gerber, M.D. in
A Practical Guide to Vibrational Medicine
*********
Additional Reading:
Sound Medicine: How to Use the Ancient Science of Sound to Heal Body and Mind by Kulreet Chaudhary
Suggested Audio:
Mantras from Tibet by Sarva Antah
Other Topics
Basics of MDMA
Rituals and Ceremony
Brain and MDMA
Trauma
Heart
Energy Movement
Quantum Physics
Native Cosmologies
Nature
Spirituality/Enlightenment
Kogi Tribe
Books written by Geral T. Blanchard
More Articles
In recent years psychotherapists have become increasingly aware of the risk of transmitting trauma intergenerationally. By examining the impact of the Holocaust, or the experiences of Native Americans who were systematically abused by colonizers including the Catholic Church, it becomes obvious that indirect passage of depression, despair, anxiety, and damaged self-regard are but a few of the ancestral legacies of uninterrupted abuse. If, however, trauma can be passed from generation to generation without direct experience, could it also be possible for the reverse to happen?
Just as we have started to witness the reality of individual post-traumatic growth (PTG) – not just bouncing back after trauma but bouncing forward – could we entertain the concept of intergenerational growth (IG) – in other words, thriving from generation to generation?
There can be two levels at which trauma is processed. The first tier may be a time of quiet denial or the dissociation of nearly all thoughts of how painful the past was. The body feels it, but the mind does not speak it. On the second level a person awakens to the entirety of it, often an unpredicted and sudden onslaught of previously suppressed details with extensive associated pain. When trauma is reconstituted at the second level it often happens unwillingly. A person may be swept away by an awakening that seems very ugly. It feels like too much to absorb in its entirety. The result is often to feel afraid, even shattered – at first. Now with everything out in the open, what must be done with it?
At the second level of awareness, it is almost impossible to go on pretending that everything is fine. No longer can the visuals and emotions be kept submerged. One wonders, “Damn it, will I ever get better?”
Traumatized persons, with their pervasive pain, typically seek mood altering experiences. This can include ascetic restrictions, hedonistic over-eating, chemical dependency, sexual dependency, sexual anorexia or celibacy, romance addiction, relationship dependency, compulsive gambling, TV or movie binging, rock climbing, auto racing, reliance on antidepressants and/or antianxiety medications, religious addiction, and so much more that can serve to pacify, distract, and avoid unpleasant thoughts and feelings. By thrill-seeking, the higher the risks being engaged, the greater mood alteration one can experience. It’s a big dopamine splash and more.
These are the adult versions of childhood thumb sucking, according to Dr. Harvey Milkman, the author of Craving for Ecstasy (the feeling of ecstasy, not the drug). Harvey pointedly said, “Growing up consists of finding the right substitute for your thumb.”
There are many emotional reactions to a drug-free spiritual awakening experience and a ceremonial MDMA journey. While this article focuses on empathy – both the feeling and the cognitive component – it is obvious to those who have awakened from a spiritual emergency that a variety of related emotions arise.
It is one thing to imagine how another person feels. Psychopaths, despite what the general public believes, are very good at empathy on an intellectual level. Even criminal psychopaths can put themselves in another person’s position and understand their perspective. It is bigger, better, and far healthier when empathy, in its deepest sense, allows us to “feel with” other people by recognizing a sense of oneness with them, what’s called unity consciousness. To hurt others would be to hurt ourselves.
It’s impossible to talk about projection without incorporating a discussion about Sigmund Freud and Donald Trump. In this article I will skip Donald but throw in a little Carl Jung. Freud, of course, named several distinctive defense measures – reality distorting strategies to keep us safe. Two of the big ones are displacement and projection.
First, a definition of projection: This is evident when an individual attributes their own unacceptable impulses onto others. For example, a person might accuse others of engaging in thievery when, in fact, they are swindling money from their employer. Some of the behaviors and thoughts we are most ashamed of could be called shadows. We can see them first in other people before we can “call them out” in ourselves. We are defending against humiliation and mortification lest we be exposed.
Does this empathogen work in a similar manner as psychedelics, blasting us off to a sudden and dramatic awakening of the mind and soul? Not necessarily. Much like massive stress, psychedelics and MDMA can knock people off an unhealthy path and offer them an entirely different trajectory, but there is a lot of arduous individual work that must follow the use of these propellants.
So, could it be concluded that MDMA is a transcendent spiritual event -- a chemical event, or perhaps a neurological experience? By themselves, both seem unlikely. They can change activity in the brain, but enlightenment comes from hard work before and after their use. Entheogens and empathogens likely have a catalytic but not a primary casual effect in awakening.
Many events in life can change us, some in profound ways, others somewhat superficially. Some positively, some negatively. Some temporarily, some permanently. Let’s break it down.
With the “help” of psychology and the diagnoses of PTSD and C-PTSD, an entire trauma industry has developed. Much help has been delivered and, unfortunately, in many instances the assigned labels stick like glue and there can be difficulty relinquishing the newly imposed identity of “breakage.”
Many life events are transformative:
Many great minds have come out of India. Like countless spelling bee champions, Mahatma Gandhi, and Aurobindo Ghose who later took on the name of Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo became a highly regarded spiritual teacher and author in the twentieth century. His main insight was that what many humans experience during altered or higher states of consciousness are glimpses of the future of evolution. And, he contended, one day these states of expansion will be normal for the whole human race.
Countless numbers of people are seeking the unity consciousness that MDMA can offer. It can make them feel bigger. And more deeply connected and powerful. Like many billions of tiny ants inching a fourteen-wheeler up a hill, every tiny bit of effort pulls the big rig along. Similarly, each one of the eight billion or so people residing on our planet today may, via a combined assemblage of singular efforts, raise their individual consciousness, while tugging the entire race forward.
“Where did all the time go?” That is the ubiquitous question every patient asks after a treatment. They ingest the medicine at 9 a.m. and, after what seems like perhaps an hour or so but was actually five or six, and once the eye mask comes off there is bewilderment as to just how much time has passed. Of course, this is all built on the bedrock notion in Western culture that time is a straight line and linear manifestation. And that there is such a thing as time! Stepping out of existing paradigms, even if for a brief “time” can be eye opening while your eyes are closed.
Traditional Native American cultures have long believed that time is a circular phenomenon. Remotely like the movie Groundhog Day suggests, every day is very similar and reoccurring like the last. In indigenous worldviews, the sun rises and the sun sets, routinely; we always have a predictable reset of sorts, the start of what we call a “new day,” or what Arapahos called “sleeps,” both reflecting measurements of time.
Dark nights of the soul as Saint John of the Cross called those long, despairing periods of our life, are never easy, in fact they are usually dreadful. They are so necessarily awful and so damn long because some of us don’t do subtlety very well. If we are open to these moments, even a tiny bit, they can serve as an internally calculated and blaring wakeup call that will guide us to solace.
John Nelson, in Healing the Split, refers to a fleeting or ephemeral sense of a higher purpose, not fully conceptualized, but compellingly near the heart. It holds answers to life’s pain but isn’t quite within our grasp…at least until the dark clouds engulf us. Then, with great staying power and inexperience matched with trust, a spiritual emergence nears surface awareness. And it always happens, as psychiatrist Stan Groff defined it, around the time of a blurry spiritual emergency.