He went on. “But there are subtle aspects we overlook. I believe that sound conveys much more data than we consciously realize, that we pick this up on some level, and that we can interact directly with this information and energy.”

I’d spent the last twelve years exploring what our ancient ancestors knew about, and how they enhanced their experience of, the subtler realms. This promised to be a new chapter in that story.

“So we want to test this idea,” David continued, “to see if there is anything about the phenomenon of hearing that goes beyond those rational explanations. So far, the results suggest that there are, that earth herself speaks directly to us, and that we register this information in symbol, form, language, and myth. To explore how some ancient structures were specially designed for purposeful acoustic results, John Reid and I have designed a new set of experiments.” I had interviewed acoustics engineer John Reid just a month prior, to learn about his work using cymatics in the King’s Chamber of the Great Pyramid.

A Brief and Partial History of Cymatics

In a recent interview with Jeff Volk, who has kept cymatics in the public eye for the past 20 years, he gave us a quick historical overview. "Two hundred years ago, German physicist Ernst Chladni demonstrated how sound could be rendered visible. He strew sand upon a steel plate and then, drawing a violin bow across the edge of that plate, set the plate "singing" with quite an audible tone. The sand immediately responded to this vibration, creating a vast array of intricate patterns on the plate, which changed in response to the frequency and amplitude of the tone. In the 1960’s and '70's, a Swiss medical doctor, Hans Jenny used electroacoustic devices to study these phenomena more precisely. He coined the term cymatics, from the Greek, 'kyma', meaning wave, and documented over 14 years of his extensive experiments in films, and in hundreds of photographs. He employed a number of materials and modalities to demonstrate the formative power of sound and vibration over inert matter. He used a number of mediums, from laser light bouncing off droplets of mercury, to steel plates dusted with the naturally spherical spores of the club moss, to calcine sand and elastic membranes. All produced beautiful and intricate patterns, and made visible the vast and mysterious world of sound, which in a sense, can be said to animate all of manifest creation.” Jeff has republished volumes I & II of Jenny’s book, Cymatics, in one volume, and videos that include original footage.

A Cymatic Surprise in the King’s Chamber
John had told us how he went to Egypt in 1997, well prepared to conduct cymatic experiments on-site. He knew he would have limited time in the King's chamber, and that he'd need a control to the experiments. So he first constructed a plywood box in his lab, in the exact dimensions of the granite sarcophagus, and rehearsed all the procedures. He set a speaker inside the plywood box, stretched a PVC membrane over the top, and sprinkled on some quartz sand. Then he fed in various tones from an oscillator to see what patterns might emerge.

"Whilst the wooden box exhibited only a single set of longitudinal striations,” John explained, “the granite sarcophagus produced some great surprises: Cymatic imagery that strongly resembled hieroglyphs. As the images formed on the membrane, I realized that I was the first person in history to see them -- with the possible exception of the ancient Egyptians! This was a very great privilege".

Back at the hotel, John ran into David and shared his images. They soon set about trying to explain such surprising and intriguing results. Says David, “I recognized every one of them as hieroglyphs, and symbols of various of the Egyptian gods associated with the Great Pyramid. I feel that somehow, the internal sound of the Pyramid was manifesting in these most extraordinary patterns, and that ancient observation of the internal sounds of the pyramid brought about the formation of early language. Perhaps this is why most monumental architecture at the outset of most of the ancient civilizations was pyramidal and most of the early languages were hieroglyphic in form. John’s theory is that, via a process of ancient ritual, the hieroglyphic sounds have been encoded into the sarcophagus and that this is what appeared when he did his experiments.”

Seeing Hidden Patterns
And that got them both wondering: If cymatics can reveal hidden patterns, special to that place, and their incorporation into the local art and language, what about other chambers in other places? What might be in their own backyard, full as England is, with temples left by a people well versed in earth energies? They began the search for promising test sites.

And I had to ask, why would the materials and the dimensions of an enclosure affect the way sound moves about and vibrates, as revealed by these cymatic tests?

John explains it thus: "Without building an acoustic isolation enclosure around the sarcophagus, I am unable to quantify how much influence the acoustics of the chamber has on the patterns I captured on film. However, experience gained with my apparatus in a variety of locations has shown that standing wave energy in a given space, can have a significant impact on the patterns which form. The type of stone employed also plays an important part in the process. For example, the King's Chamber is constructed in granite, as is the sarcophagus. The quartz content of granite is high and quartz exhibits harmonic resonance properties when excited by a pure tone, whether from an oscillator or from a human creating overtones. When excited it gives off its own harmonic 'signature'. I believe that it is the cumulative signature of countless fragments of quartz imbedded within the sarcophagus and within the chamber walls/floor/ceiling, which are responsible for the images I captured." John’s book, “Egyptian Sonics” details the whole story.

A 12th Century Chapel Reveals her Secrets
Attending their next set of experiments was not an invitation to pass up. Paul and I were soon on our way, arriving just in time for the October 27th event coordinated by Clive and Linda Greenslade, David’s publishers, at a small chapel dedicated to St. Catherine, in Abbottsbury, Dorset. One of the few chapels of its day left intact, it escaped the fate of so many churches that were reduced to ruins as King Henry the Eighth forcibly removed Catholicism and installed a new, divorce-lenient Church of England.

This chapel was spared as it sits atop a hill overlooking the Atlantic, thus serving as an essential navigational landmark for ocean-going vessels. And for David and John, it’s possible Templar connections made it even more intriguing a test site.

David, a former priest, and well versed on the saints, could tell me just who St. Catherine was. “In the Christian tradition she was a supposedly fourth century saint who lived in Alexandria. She was a learned woman of the mysteries, with connections to the Coptic saint, to Isis, and to the later heretics, the Cathars. She was martyred on a wheel, and her name in Greek means pure.”

The chapel’s design is unusual, taller than it is wide. The tiles that once made up the floor are gone, leaving only packed earth. There are no pews, no altars, no wall decorations, just a bit of white plaster amongst the bare, unadorned stones. Joseph MacDermott, an art restorer, lecturer in the Western Esoteric Tradition, and choir master, suggested its thick stone walls may contain empty clay pots, imbedded at intervals, to further enhance the acoustics with internal resonant chambers.

About 40 people arrived to witness and participate in the day’s experiments. John noted that this many people compromised the results somewhat, as our clothing and soft tissue absorbed sound waves. But this day was also designed as a group experience.

As we waited for the various musicians, singers, and overtone singers to arrive, one woman told me how she had visited a few months prior and found the chapel empty. For some reason, she said, she was moved to tears, not of sadness, but of a palpable sense of the fullness of mother, of home. This would prove to be a common experience.

So perhaps the storm that raged the previous night was appropriate. There was some discussion, but no consensus, as to whether the acoustic effects would be enhanced or hindered by the weather. David felt that strong winds can strip your personal energy field, with a negative ionizing effect and that this would be good for the day itself. John was concerned that the howling wind would adversely affect the natural acoustic signature of the chapel. Joseph wondered if the porous stone walls, soaked with rain, would vibrate with better effect to the winds. Those were gale force winds that nearly blew us off the hill as we clamored up, and gave John’s truckload of equipment a bad shaking in the farmer’s tractor hired to carry it up.

John's cymatic set-up, including computers, a large drum, microphones on stands, a large projection screen, and an armory of equipment I could not name, filled one end of the chapel. The first of the overtone singers sang into the microphone to see what patterns they could coax from the dusting of sand on the drum’s head, visible on screen. Joseph served as conductor. For the first several singers, the sand collected into a simple ring within a ring. Soon enough, though, Joseph seemed to know what tones were needed, with a wonderful ability to identify and remember pitch. As he told the singers what notes to hit, complex patterns began to emerge onscreen.

Joseph and David interpreted many of the patterns, finding correlates in art and myth. One pattern resembled an abstract drawing of a woman kneeling in prayer. A recurring pattern was a maze of concentric circles. “A common symbol for the ‘world,’ the feminine mysteries,” Joseph pointed out. Sacred site researcher and tour guide Gary Biltcliffe noted that like many tours, or sacred hills in England, the narrow ancient path up to the chapel wound along in the concentric circles of a labyrinth, and that the maze design is a common one found scribed in stone.

John said that many of the forms seen that day were unique, not seen by him over many years of cymatic work. He was particularly intrigued by a recurring rose, a circle surrounded by petal forms, which he identified as the result of a standing wave pattern set up between the lengths and widths of the room. Interesting that the rosette is a common motif seen in many churches of the period, and elsewhere.

David was surprised and delighted to find how well this chapel resonates with the female voice. “Most gothic cathedrals are tuned to the male voice,” he said. “But this chapel accommodates both male and female ranges. So it is fully in line with the feminine aspects of a chapel dedicated to a female saint, and with an old folk custom: For centuries, village women would pray at this particular chapel for a husband, for the happy union of male and female.”

Walking Through the Null and Node
Then came John’s 'Wall of Sound' experiment. As John explains it, “this experiment consists first of identifying the prime resonant frequency of the chamber using a Pink Noise test, which I carried out last time I was there. The frequency is near to 125 Hz, very close to that of the King's Chamber. I then set the oscillator to produce a 125 Hz sine wave and I pumped this out via a small loudspeaker, propagating longitudinally. The sonic energy goes out into the chamber and stabilizes into a matrix of standing waves. If you could see this matrix it would look like a bit like a chessboard with areas of great intensity of sound (the anti-nodes) and areas of low intensity sound (the nodes). However the ‘chess board,’ in this instance, is in 3D so the pattern repeats right up to the ceiling. A pair of stepladders would prove that!”

John had us all line up and slowly walk in procession around his Wall of Sound. You could feel the cymatic matrix in 3D. It’s one thing to see the null and node lines of a sound wave on a drum, and quite another to feel it surround you: Take a step, pause, feel your whole body vibrate. Take the next step, pause, and feel the contrasting silence, back and forth, all around the chapel. I could now well understand how the cymatics patterns emerged, as the sand was pushed away from the anti-nodes to find safe haven in the nodes.

For John, the pattern that emerged during this phase was a key, as he explains: “The amplifiers feeding into the membrane were turned off, yet what we saw form on the membrane looked like a primordial cell with nucleus, ectoplasm etc. The 'cell' formed without any direct energy being pumped into the cymatic drum! The energy was indirect. This is absolute proof of how much effect the chamber itself can have on a cymatic image.”

The day finished with a series of songs, known as keening, that had much of the room in quiet tears, and demonstrated that the most powerful instrument of all is the human voice. Linda Greenslade shared her experience: “At funerals, keening allows the mourners to lament for their loved one by bringing out the longing and the separation through haunting melodies. At weddings, keening celebrates the new love, which connects each with the other through harmonious song that rejoices and reconnects. And at St Catherine's, when the singers came together, harmonizing around the one note that resonated with the building, I felt a deep connection with all mothers. First as a child, going to my mother to be embraced by her unconditional love for me, then as a mother, myself being the one to give out the love to my children and them to me. I felt I knew the mother in the earth whom we had reawakened by being together on that day. Finally, I understood that a mother's love is a reflection of divine love, the unconditional love of the eternal parent. Reconnecting with the female spirit that had been given the name of Catherine, was a stage along the journey to find that unconditional love once more. For the deep joy of this experience, I wanted to weep from the very essence of my femininity.” And then we all packed up and headed back down the hill, to find that the day that had begun in storm ended with perfectly clear, calm, sunny skies.

New Theories in Art
Abstract designs found throughout cave art, it has been suggested, is representative of the shamanic visionary journey, and what is seen in altered states. And similarly: could it be that we are subconsciously tuned in ways that inspire us to repeat, in symbol and form, language and story, energetic patterns that lie unseen, just beneath the surface? And that our ancestors knew how to enhance these connections (and how directly, and interactively, did they ‘speak’ with this source)? If so, our British friends have opened a new doorway to understanding ancient art, myth, and architecture; a forgotten aspect of consciousness that rings with profound implications and exciting new possibilities.