Review by Pamela Peterson
Susan Hale. music therapist and singer, was inspired to embark upon this written odyssey when, standing in the centre of the great labyrinth of Chartres Cathedral, she heard her voice resonate from the nave. Having long considered singing, the earliest form of musical expression, to be a fundamental human need, she suddenly experienced the power of music to awaken the soul to new dimensions.
We accompany Susan on her "sound hearing" rather than "sight seeing" historical tour of sacred places as she sings her way through ancient caves, rock formations, tombs, cairns, stone circles, pyramids, sonic temples, stupas, synagogues and cathedrals. For her, these sacred sites are "amplifiers of consciousness", enhanced by the spiritual power of chant, song, the "voice" of cathedrals at Chartres and Rosslyn Chapel, the well at Glastonbury, all acting as a connection between worlds.
Early humans, similarly moved by the altered sense of reality produced by powerful vibrations at the convergence of ley lines and underground streams, created their paintings on the most resonant walls of caves, "the wombs of the earth", believing these echoes to be mysterious voices from a world beyond, spirits speaking back to them.
Later civilisations built their sacred structures on these same sites, using the ratios of sacred geometry to enhance the sounds, thereby producing a mystical, ethereal effect. Sound, sometimes referred to as "liquid architecture", was modified to comply with the needs of various religions: cavernous sound for Catholic Gregorian chant, focus on the voice from the pulpit for Protestant sermons, high, clear sound for the instruments of chanting Buddhist monks.
In addition to her personal beliefs drawn from her experience, Susan cites the findings of various auditory experts regarding the fundamental role of hearing, our primary sense. According to Dr Branford Weeks: "Our senses develop out of the matrix of the ear ... which precedes the nervous system." Pythagoras considered the voice, the only instrument producing vowels, to be the primal instrument. Hans Jenny showed how vibrations cause harmonic shapes in liquids, pastes, powders and sand. Susan believes that sound has a similar effect on our consciousness. "We are moved by music because we are music, constructed out of the proportions of the golden mean, the architectural building block of every part of our natural world." A musical composition by Hildegard of Bingen, charted in three-dimensional form, resembled the Gothic cathedral in which it was chanted.
Throughout the book. an exploration of the myths of various peoples reveals the sympathetic resonance that existed in early times between the human and natural worlds and the important role of chant and singing in perpetuating this relationship. Susan laments what she calls the "desecration" of sacred harmony in the last five hundred years, beginning with the Roman Catholic Church's instigation of the Inquisition and its resulting five centuries of suppression, including the regulation of music by the church. Henry VIII's destruction of the monasteries marked the end of Gregorian chant, whilst Puritan sects banned music and disapproved of Gothic architecture. In later centuries, music, once affective and ecstatic, became abstract and analytical, finally being reduced to acoustics. To-day, dulled by the "flat lines" of electronic sound, we have become listeners rather than singers, manipulated, not inspired by "music". Joseph Campbell suggests that the tallest building is an indication of the greatest influence in any society.
Nevertheless Susan remains quietly optimistic, noting examples of people currently building shrines, singing and healing in sacred places, which she sees as a reflection of "an essential human hunger for spiritual sustenance" and perhaps "a way to tune our technology to the rhythms of the earth." Sections of the medical profession are acknowledging the power of sound in the healing of certain ailments.
For Susan Hale this book is the culmination of a ten year mission. For the armchair traveller into the world of sound, it is an informative, inspiring, magical, musical and spiritual journey.