Title: Sounding the Mind of God
Author: Liz Cooper
Reviewed:
Author website: https://www.healthysound.com
Review
Before reading this book, I was unaware of sound therapy, and was almost surprised to be asked to review this book for a Pagan audience. Quick scans through led me to hope that this was not just another self-help manual filled with new-agey soundbites about its ‘holistics’ approach to self-healing.
Actually the book is more about spiritual improvement, which has the side effect of being a useful tool in both self-help and ritual or magical intention. The author pulls together strands from modern scientific thinking and carefully weaves them in with ancient knowledge from Eastern and European cultures, which neatly dovetails with current Pagan thinking on spirituality and the nature of the divine.
In a nutshell, the book is about sound and its effect on us as material beings. The author reminds us that matter is energy trapped in form, and that our consciousness need not be constrained entirely within, but can be expanded to tap into the ‘mind of god’, or if you would rather, the divine consciousness. Various useful exercises help you to follow the thread throughout, giving practical expression to understanding as you go along, and culminating in exercises to thoroughly integrate sound in chakra and nadi meditation, tailored to your own needs in terms of personal development and healing.
However, as a Pagan I could see the benefit in introducing sound more into meditation or ritual. For example, there are exercises useful in clearing, in altering mental states and how to use intention to change outcome in positive manifestation. Lyz’s theory on the balance between contraction and release gives the template for magical work to banish or release negativity, and coupled with the associated sounds makes for a very powerful working indeed. Most spell workbooks have correspondence tables for moon phases, colours, days, planets and chakras, but here sound is added, bringing more depth to workings and an inspiration to those composing chants for ritual. There is also a useful section on drumming and rhythm, a natural choice for ritual or ceremony because of its consciousness-altering abilities and scope for shamanic journeying, working with the harmonies of the sound whilst remaining grounded in the physical shape of the rhythm.
This book is a useful tool in many ways, using sound and the altered states that it induces to tap into ‘ultimate regeneration’, healing and harmony, as well as the proactive use of sound in developing and honing tendencies for precognition and psychic development. On the whole a refreshing and instructive book, which although not long, packs a punch without resorting to soundbites.
Jess Baxter