Sorrow, Comfort, & Joy 
Healing Powers in World Music - page 6

Spirits, Magic, and Healing

There is a lot of talk about "new age" remedies – and there are fanatics for and against anything bearing that label, but even as early as the 1400’s, song was recognized as an alternative to medicine. In a 15th century manuscript, Marcilio Ficino writes: "remember that song is a most powerful imitator of all things. It imitates the intentions and passions of the soul as well as words; it represents also people’s physical gestures, motions, and actions as well as their characters and imitates all these and acts them out so forcibly that it immediately provokes both the singer and the audience to imitate and act out the same things. By the same power, when it imitates the celestials, it also wonderfully arouses our spirit upwards to the celestial influence and the celestial influence downward to our spirit. Now the very matter of song, indeed, is altogether purer and more similar to the heavens than is the matter of medicine. Song, therefore, which is full of spirit and meaning... has as much power as does any other combination of things (e.g., a medicine) and casts it into the singer and from him into the nearby listener" (Ficino). 

The shaman, or healer, must enter into a state of consciousness in which he or she has the power to heal. This often happens through the shaman’s own illness: "The man or woman being initiated into shamanic mysteries commonly suffers a debilitating illness during which he or she has the first meaningful encounter with spirits who use the delirium or coma to introduce the aspirant to the shamanic state of consciousness" (Cowan, pg. 23). In all parts of the world, in order to do magic, the shaman must enter a trance state, during which magical songs are used: 

The Papago Indians of southern Arizona, near the Mexican border, work their magic by singing. Every activity and mood has a corresponding song; if it is sung well and in the proper manner, the song casts a spell, the singer’s wish comes true, and the people prosper. In a trancelike state or in natural sleep, the Papago hear songs... From nature and the spirits of nature, the Papago learn their songs... A Yakut shaman in Siberia describes it this way: ‘Mysterious noises are audible, sometimes from above, sometimes from below, sometimes in front of, sometimes behind the shaman...’ Often shamans will say that they received their songs from the spirits. A Gitksan shaman on the Pacific coast named Isaac Tens recalled that when he once fell into trance, his body began to quiver, and he started to sing uncontrollably and had visions of huge birds and animals. He explained that ‘the songs force themselves out complete, without any attempt to compose them.’ Among the Ainu of Hkkaido in Japan, the shamans sing epic songs and although each shaman sings in her own voice, her use of the first person refers to the gods themselves who are thought to be the actual singers (Cowan, pg. 71).

It is a common thread that "people experience sickness and healing through rituals of consciousness-transformation whose experiential core is musical. And while ethnographers often interpret these types of experiences as religious, the types are, nonetheless, part of long-standing indigenous health care practices" (Friedson, pg. xii).

In Africa, the dream state of the Tumbuka was studied by Steven Friedson: "Dreams do not have the same ontological status for the Tumbuka that they have for those of us in the West whose perceptions of the psyche have been shaped by depth psychologies. For the Tumbuka, dreams are real... According to the Tumbuka, a person has multiple souls, some of which are detachable form the physical body. One of these souls, a kind of dream soul, can leave the body through the ear when a person is asleep and can travel about... For the Tumbuka, there is no sharp demarcation between the reality of waking consciousness and the reality of dreams. Events in both realms have the same status of reality" (Friedson, pg. 21).

He goes on to say, "Having the same status does not mean, however, that they share the same reality... There is no question that they clearly differentiate between the reality of waking consciousness and that of dreams. They do not, however, dichotomize the two into real and unreal (hallucinatory phenomena), as we tend to do in the West" (Friedson, pg. 21). It is helpful to keep in mind that a trance state or dream state might be simply defined as that state where the brain waves are in the 4-7 Hz range. The Tumbuka healers are called nchimi (prophet), and they must be possessed by vimbuza spirits in order to be effective as a healer. "Vimbuza – a complex of meanings and references – encompasses a class of spirits, the illnesses they cause, and the music and dance used to treat the illnesses. As spirit, vimbuza is the numinous energy of foreign peoples and wild animals; as illness, it is both a spirit affliction and an initiatory sickness; as musical experience, it is a mode of trance. For patients possessed by vimbuza spirits, trance dancing is a cooling therapy; for adepts, it is the means for transforming a disease into a vocation; and for healers, it is the source of an energizing heat that fuels the divination trance" (Friedson, pg. 12). 

Chikanje, a prophet healer, sings a particular song that is about his mother who died the year before. The song was brought to him by the spirits in a dream. "The song reminds him of the past and makes him feel sad, for he misses [his mother]. According to Chikanje, sadness (chitima) helps to heat his vimbuza, and this in turn helps him to ‘see’" (Friedson, pg. 114-115). Here again is the use of expressing sadness or pain through singing in order to reach a state of consciousness that would enable healing. "The bodily sensations induced by drums sounding the rhythmic modes of the vimbuza spirits, the dynamic power of call and response singing... are more than acoustical phenomena; for healers and their patients they are physically felt, substantial sources of energy" (Friedson, pg. 39). 

The Temiar healers in Malaysia are also initiated into the trance state through dreams and songs: "During dreams... soul of the dreamer meets with... souls of entities... who express their desire to become the dreamer’s spiritguide. The relationship is confirmed through bestowal of a song during ceremonial performance... Singing the song links person and spiritguide; thus transformed into a medium for the spirits, a person can diagnose and treat illness" (Roseman, pg. 6). The way this works is: "The spirit’s presence flows through the medium’s voice as song and through the medium’s body as a cool spiritual liquid. Imbued with the overarching vision and vast perspective of the spirits when he sings, the medium is empowered to see and counteract illness. The act of singing demonstrates the translation of the spiritguide’s vision into the medium’s knowledge and power" (Roseman, pp. 78-79). This is not quite the physiological explanation I would like to have. Exactly what is a cool spiritual liquid? And how is illness counteracted? Is there perhaps something about the vibrations of singing that feels as if a cool liquid is pouring through the body, restoring a body’s natural ability to heal itself? "In order to understand and accurately assess the efficacy of health care systems such as those practiced by Chinese shamans or Tumbuka prophet healers [or Temiar mediums], one must expand the analytical focus beyond the confines of the Western biomedical model" (Friedson, pg. 100). That the West might benefit from this expansion, I have no doubt. That the West is ready to expand its analytical focus, I am not without doubt, but hopeful.

We return to India for a more physiological explanation of the phenomenon of healing with song, that might be known in the future as "how the West was won": "The physical effect of sound has a great influence upon the human body. The whole mechanism, the muscles, the blood circulation, the nerves, are all moved by the power of vibration. As there is resonance for every sound, so the human body is a living resonator for sound... Sound has an effect on each atom of the body, for each atom resounds; on all glands, on the circulation of the blood and on pulsation, sound has an effect. This explains to us the method of the healers, teachers and mystics, who by the power of sound charged an object with their healing power" (Inayat Khan, pp. 261-2). Well, this is perhaps not as scientific an explanation as many would like to hear, but it is a start anyway. 

So, what would happen if a nineteenth century itinerant Irish harper were to stow away on a ship and find himself in India? Would cultural differences be too much for him to handle? Or would East meet West on the common ground of the physiological response to emotions expressed in song? Certainly, he would learn that the magical healing powers of music exist in other parts of the world – but with different names: the goltrai, song of sorrow, is known in India as karuna; the suantrai, song of comfort, is called shanta; and the gentrai, song of joy, is the rasa, hasa (Swarup). And perhaps he would even learn that the Indian word for the sidhe, is Nirvana. Works Cited

© Copyright 1997 Verlene Schermer
All Rights Reserved