SOUND ATTUNEMENT THERAPY AND THE POWER OF DRUM HEALING
By Toby Christensen
“… in the mind of the indigenous, illness is like an unwelcome guest that wants the place it has taken over to remain the same so that it can be comfortable. Certain healing practices …involve altering the energy structure of the person. By doing this, the illness, if there is any, becomes “irritated” a the rude hospitality and moves away in search of another place” (Some’, 1999:262)
Tribal societies have long recognized that there is a connection between energy flow and physical and emotional health. The drum has been used to heal people in tribal cultures for thousands of years. For example, the Ju’hoansi of the Kalahari Desert in southwest Africa believe that drumming facilitates the rise of a spiritual power called N/um. As N/um rises in the body it allows individuals to heal themselves and others. “If sick people are present at the dance, the n/um kausi {healer} will pay special attention to them, spending up to an hour working on one person, rubbing back, chest, forehead, legs and arms with magical sweat. With the very ill, teams of up to six healers work in relays on several parts of the body at once” (Lee, 1993:115)
Other tribes believe that the drum may talk to individuals in their dreams and give them gifts or knowledge. One Menominee man, for example, had a dream that he was out hunting and two deer approached him. The dream prompted him to go out hunting the next day after making a “sacrifice to the drum in order to notify the powers of his and the deer’s decision and to secure the ‘luck’ {the power} to perform the deed successfully” (Spindler, 1971:67). Other tribal groups, such as the Ojibwa, used drums to communicate with the dead (Hallowell, 1992).
Drumming is also an important feature of Dagara spirituality and healing in West Africa. People drum when a baby is born, when someone is sick, when there is marital or family discord or when someone dies (Some’ 1999), Through the drum, people are drawn together; it removes or smoothes out conflicting energies that threaten family or village unity. The Dagara also believe that drumming helps restore or reaffirm a person’s energetic sense of self; in effect, the drum “tunes” their soul. As a result, they are better-protected and less susceptible to disease. By the same token if illness is already present in a person, then drumming can help drive it out Especially in the case of chronic conditions, regular treatments with the drum are necessary to “train” the body back into the right energetic state.
Many scientific studies also attest to the power of the drum to reduce stress, promote pain management and boost the immune system to prevent or minimize the spread of disease (Achterberg, 1985). Another interesting study suggests that drumming produces increased natural killer or NK cell activity in cancer patients (Bittman, Berk, Felten, Westingard, Simonton, Papas and Ninehouser, 2001). This fact is especially intriguing since other research suggests that emotional as well as physical illness may be caused by a reduction in NK cell activity. For example, one study suggests that long term grief and depressive symptoms are related to a reduction in NK cell activity (Irwin, Daniel, Smith, Bloom, and Weiner, 1987). Since drumming stimulates increased NK cell activity, it can help reduce depression as well as a host of other ailments. Harner and Tyron (1996) have documented that drumming significantly reduced feelings of anger, confusion, fatigue and depression. In addition, participants in the study experienced an enhanced sense of cognitive, emotional and physical well being after exposure to drumming.
These studies show how traditional tribal healing practices work and why drumming is so central to many indigenous healing traditions. Evidence also suggests that Western medicine can benefit by integrating tribal healing techniques—such as therapeutic drumming—with other standard forms of treatment. My own work with Sound Attunement Therapy affirms this view. One of my clients called Karen* came to me with high blood pressure and a badly malfunctioning heart. Her doctors told her that her heart valve was damaged and that her heart could “blow up” at any moment. I began giving Karen SAT treatments daily to help lower her blood pressure and to repair her heart. The treatments significantly reduced her blood pressure and lowered her stress. Karen’s doctors were gradually able to decrease her medication and allowed her to go back to work part-time. Subsequent tests also revealed that her heart function rates had improved from 57% to 66% and her heart valve showed signs of regenerating. A few months later her heart function had improved so much that Karen was able to go off the rest of her medication. She was even cleared to resume recreational scuba driving (something her doctors had said she would never be able to do again). Her doctors were surprised by her progress and felt that mistake must have been made with the first tests, since it was so unusual for someone with Karen’s heart condition to improve that much.
From the Dagara perspective, however, Karen’s increased heart function is not an error. When a spiritual or energetic imbalance is realigned, it usually leads to a corresponding improvement on a physical level. As Malidoma Some’ suggests:
Methods of healing must take into account the energetic or spiritual
condition that is in turmoil, thereby affecting the physical condition.
If you focus only on the physical translation of the underlying energetic
disorder, then you are ignoring the source of the physical illness. If you
address only the physical problem, then you end up with a cure, which
fixes the physical condition, providing a momentary sense of victory
over debilitation. But this act denies the needs of the energy, the
adjustment of Spirit needed to make the cure last. Sooner or later this
disordered energy will figure out a new way to affect the physical body,
often in a new and more virulent manner than it did originally. If you
instead address the energy of the mind and the Spirit, whose status is
affecting the physical body, then you are likely to truly heal (1999:32).
* Client names have been changed in order to preserve their privacy.
Another client called Meg* was diagnosed with a large ovarian tumor that the doctors believed was cancerous. Although the doctors wanted to perform surgery immediately, Meg decided to delay the operation for a month in order to prepare for it. Part of this preparation included regular SAT treatments to reduce her stress and to realign her physical energies. My work with her indicated that the tumor was a physical manifestation of several longstanding psychological problems that had plagued her throughout her life. She was now faced with the choice of either dying or changing. I counseled her to regard the operation as a radical ritual. In the Dagara tradition this sort of ritual is resorted to when a dramatic life change is needed. The physical body is pushed to the extreme in order to create a do or die situation that results in death or transformation. “The ritual will push out the energy that is keeping him or her trapped and will open a new space to fill with appropriate energy” (Some’, 1999:150-151).
Meg took my advice seriously and focused on isolating all the thoughts, feelings and patterns she wanted to get rid of inside the tumor. The operation was a success. The doctors were able to remove the tumor (which was the size of a basket ball), and a biopsy confirmed that it was benign. More importantly Meg felt free from the negative patterns that had plagued her. Her energy began to vibrate at a higher level and she was released from the hospital after only two days stay. We did a number of post-operative SAT sessions to cement the new energy patterns within her body and she healed very quickly as a result. Within a week Meg was walking five miles a day and was able to resume most of her daily activities. Her doctors were amazed by her progress. They told her that the normal recovery time for this sort of operation usually takes six to eight weeks.
These case studies show how valuable tribal perspectives and techniques can be for helping us understand and treat illness. I feel privileged to be part of this healing tradition, and I look forward to the day that more people will have an opportunity to experience the benefits of Sound Attunement Therapy.
References Cited
Achterberg, J.
1985 IMAGERY IN HEALING. Shambhala.
Bittman, B., L. Berk, D. Felten, J. Westengard, O.C. Simonton, J. Pappas and M. Ninehouser
2001 “Composite Effects on Group Drumming Music Therapy on Modulation of Neuroendocrine-Immune Parameters in Normal Subjects”. Alternative Therapies. 7(1) 38-47.
Irwin, M., M. Daniels, T. Smith, E. Bloom and H. Weiner
1987 “Impaired Natural Killer Cell Activity During Bereavement”. Brain, Behavior and Immunity. 1:98-104.
Hallowell, A.I.
1992 THE OJIBWA OF BERENS RIVER, MANITOBA. Harcourt-Brace.
Harner, S. and W. Tyron
1996 “Therapeutic Effects of Shamanism”. Shamanism. 9(1) 27-28.
Lee, R.
1993 THE DOBE JU’HOANSI. Harcourt-Brace.
Some’, M.
1999 THE HEALING WISDOM OF AFRICA. Putnam.
Spindler, G. and L. Spindler
1971 DREAMERS WITH POWER. Waveland Press.
Toby Christensen is a Master Drummer and Shamanic Practitioner, who has over 30 years of professional drumming experience. He has toured internationally with rock and gospel music groups and has performed frequently as a ritual drummer in both African and Native American ceremony. He is trained on the trap set, the African Djembe, congas and the hoop drum also known as the Shaman's Drum. He has studied in Africa with Sobonfu and Malidoma Some’ from the Dagara Tribe in Burkina Faso, Chief Nana Depah of Ghana, and in the U.S. with a Chief of the Lakota Nation and other Native American teachers. He is a Ritual drummer for Sobonfu Some’ here in the U.S. and has studied Shamanism with Michael Harner and the Foundation for Shamanic Studies.
SOUND ATTUNEMENT THERAPY
Sound attunement Therapy is the use of vibrational energy in a process which brings the mind, body, emotions, and psyche of an individual or group into harmony.
Recent studies suggest that therapeutic drumming increases immune system function, controls pain, relieves stress, and has been successful in treating serious conditions such as substance abuse, alcoholism, AIDS, adrenal failure, high blood pressure and cancer.
Other research suggests that therapeutic drumming is also effective for treating emotional disorders such as depression, anger, and anxiety.
Sound Attunement Therapy works by producing a bio-energetic reconfiguration of a persons energy system which effects the physical body, mind, and emotions. It produces the energetic structure to promote heal and restore a person’s natural healthy rhythms. Bio-Energetic Reconfiguration‘is the transformation or rearrangement of energy in and between living organisms and between living organisms and their environment, to enhance self-awareness, well-being and relieve physical, spiritual, and emotional maladies.
www.healingdrummer.com
email: toby@healingdrummer.com
