Today, I simply want to share this video discussion between Deva Premal, Miten and Dr Kennet R Pelletier, author of the forthcoming book “Change Your Genes, Change Your Life” on the topic of the healing power of mantra. This subject is very dear to my heart since I have found what they are discussing here to be so profoundly true in my own experience, especially relating to the Gayatri Mantra, which (apart from being a profoundly beautiful and inexplicable powerful ancient mantra) has become a favourite “tool” that I have used countless times to soothe and guide my own nervous system towards a healing response. The mantra-music of Deva and Miten is also something I turn to over and over again and I have seen them perform “live” once every year for the past half decade (and will do again in the autumn); a collective healing experience that is quite impossible to describe in words, I simply urge you to experience it for yourself if you can on one of their annual world tours. All I can vouch for is that the collective experience seems to amplify the healing effect and can be profound and long-lasting.

Listening to Gregorian chant and certain choral music is another modality I have used in this powerful way for several decades now; going back long before I associated the effects I experienced with “healing”. Dr Pelletier has spent years studying the effect of sound on DNA and this seems to be where the power of sound to heal truly lies; which makes it a frontier science as regards new methods for tackling very old health issues. The beauty is, we all have access to this kind of healing; those mantras I have learned (with no need to understand the meaning of the words) are my portable tool whenever I need to call upon them and they can be felt so profoundly by the body. One effect that has been measured is that the two hemispheres of the brain become synchronised when mantra is sung or listened to, with all the numerous healing effects I have touched upon before when this happens. Epigenetics has show us how we get to change our genetic expression in virtually every moment, as we expose ourselves to certain influences that switch certain genes on or off, and so the power of music can be profound when it comes to over-riding certain “negative” expressions of gene.

In fact the science behind all of this is a very deep and expansive subject; one I have delved into from all angles over the years, though there really is no simple way of nailing  exactly how certain sounds works to heal since it is where the metaphysical meets the physical. Nonetheless, this conversation between “the music-makers” and “the scientist”, makes fascinating listening, with some compelling anecdotes, for anyone interested in exploring the healing potential of sound for themselves. Here’s that video link: