Jonathan Goldman: This is very difficult to answer because there’s probably a lot of people I don’t know who I should name and a lot of people I know who I shouldn’t name.  And I’d have to name musicians as well as healers, and teachers who may not be musicians or healers. I’d forget some names and leave out people who deserve to be cited because if I didn’t, the list would be enormous. 

Rick Martin: Go ahead.  Just name a few so our readers can have some names.

Jonathan Goldman: As far as musicians go, Steven Halpern and Iasos are actively up there as people who consciously create music for healing.  Kitaro is incredible for shifting consciousness with music.   So are a lot of other people.  John Beaulieu is a great teacher and sonic practitioner who creates some very interesting recordings.  Don Campbell has helped illuminate mainstream consciousness to the power of music.  Fabian Maman has done some wonderful work.  Jim Albani leads amazing group toning experiences.  The list goes on and on.  Laraaji creates great celestial music.  Sarah Benson is a wonderful flute player and conduit for divine love through sound.  Kay Gardner has been a pioneer in writing and teaching about healing music.  There are chanters and musicians in all the different countries who create transformational and healing music.  There are people from all over the world who may not be known about in our Western society, but may be doing extraordinary work with sound as a healing and transformative modality.   Sometimes we confuse the ability to promote oneself with the ability to be gifted in an area. Just because someone is well known does not mean they are masters in a field.  They simply may be master promoters.  Also, we may have a person who knows nothing consciously about healing with music, but whose music embodies a healing ability.

I think John Lennon would have probably been exploring this venue.  Jimi Hendrix too.  The CD imprint of one of Peter Gabriel’s live albums has Cymatics pictures on it. I’m sure Carlos Santana is aware of the healing power of music. This awareness of sound as a transformational and healing modality is flowing into mainstream! .   It’s amazing. 

I think you have to remember that healing music can come in many varieties.  And frequently, it depends upon the listener and how they resonant to the music or the ideas or the frequencies that are consciously or unconsciously created by us all.  

Rick Martin: What about the subject of digital vs. analog recording quality?  Would you comment, please, on the range of sound as actually heard by the human ear; that which is out of the range of human conscious perception, as well as the benefit to the listener of including those higher-end harmonics within a sound healing recording?

Jonathan Goldman: This is a question that is frequently asked in workshops—the difference between digital and analog.  To be truthful, my thoughts and beliefs about the difference continue to evolve as our digital technology evolves. 

When digital recordings first came out, there was some data to indicate that they were not very beneficial to our energy field.  I’m talking about digital records now—remember them?  I once worked with a doctor who showed that digital recordings weakened certain acupuncture meridians such as the lung meridian and heart meridians. Then, later on compact discs started coming out.  At the time, I was quite anti-digital. I had hoped that it was just a passing fancy, but no such luck.

For many years, I refused to release my recordings as CDs because I was quite sure they were not beneficial to our nervous systems and our energy field, and, I must say, I read some data indicating that this was correct.  But eventually I realized that I would be missing a large part of the music listening audience if I did not get with the times and go digital.  I began first by putting “DOLPHIN DREAMS” out as a CD, and then many of my other recordings.  

Now there is a difference between digital technology and CDs.  Similar in certain aspects; different in other aspects.  At first, I was most concerned that digital nullified intention.  A scientist who is an extraordinary innovator in the field of sound told this to me about 15 years ago and I tended to believe him.  It felt correct to me because as you know, intention is very important to me. But as the CD listening public became larger and larger, I realized that I would be losing a very large audience if I did not change to CD format. 

My biggest concern at the time was that the various divine energy forms that I work with on my recordings would not want to be digitized.  I believed that they had no problem resonating with magnetic medium, such as tapes.  But I wondered about being digitized and being turned into zeroes and ones.  So, with “DOLPHIN DREAMS” and with every subsequent recording I have done, I take the master recording that will be used to duplicate copies of this recording and I put it into a crystal grid, a powerful geometric arrangement of quartz crystals which creates interdimensional fields.   Once the master recording such as a DAT (Digital Audio Tape is in the grid, I ask the divine energy forms, the gods, goddesses, angels and whomever it is that I’m working with, if they would not mind being digitized and to please come into the recording in order to assist and benefit the planet.  It seems to be effective.  

I did that for “DOLPHIN DREAMS”, my first digital recording, and I have continued to do it with each subsequent recording.  I think it’s extremely important.  And I think it works.  But there’s something else as well. The fact of the matter is that we live in a digital society.  Digital is here.  It is no fad.  It is not going away.  And I believe that beings of higher vibrations than we are—Divine entities if you like—have agreed that they will be digitized and converted to zeroes and ones in order to assist us on the planet right now.  I’m not sure that this was true at the beginning of the digital recording phenomenon, but I believe it is true now--too many listeners tell me of Divine manifestations that occur when listening to my recordings.  For example, I receive reports of Tara, the Tibetan Goddess of Compassion, coming to listeners while the CD of “TRANCE TARA” is playing—that sort of thing.  “TRANCE TARA” is an invocation to this divine female energy of compassion.  Obviously, Tara has consented to being digitized in order to assist listeners.

I think what my scientist friend said about digital nullifying intentionality may have been true at one point, but it is true no more.  In fact, my friend who said these things to me many years ago now works heavily in the digital domain.  So things change.  

I’m currently working on a new recording called “THE LOST CHORD”, based a bit upon the technology I invented in my novel, THE LOST CHORD, which describes a computer generated set of frequencies that create interdimensional gateways.  But unlike the Lost Chord in the novel, this will be a very safe and listenable sonic environment.  “THE LOST CHORD” will employ extraordinary digital technology, but it will also focus upon the human voice and sacred chant.  We’re going to be doing things that were sonically quite unimaginable some years ago, but now with digital technology, it will be possible.  And the potentials for healing and self-transformation in regard to this are amazing.  It’s really quite exciting.  I think that with the proper intention, digital technology may prove to be an extraordinary asset to us.   This is the positive aspect of the situation regarding digital.

Some concerns I have regarding this situation include the fact that many digitized sounds are not real.  I have a friend who is an extremely well known recording artist.  Some years ago, he sold his very expensive digital equipment to buy very expensive analog equipment.  When asked why he said, “Because I want people to know what things really sound like.”  And I totally understand and agree.  Instead of using a synthesizer to play a violin part for a concert, he will have a violin player actually play the part.  It’s wonderful!  I think that there is certainly a difference between real instruments and synthesized instruments.  But not everyone is in a position of touring with a string section. Synthesizers certainly have their place in music. You can do things with synthesizers that you can’t do with acoustic instruments and vice versa.  I just hope we all continue to remember what real instruments sound like!

What is still quite disturbing about digital technology is the playback medium—CDs.  Some of the recording technology is quite sophisticated, with sampling rates that are quite high, taking up a very large amount of the sonic spectrum.  And it’s advancing and getting better all the time.

But CDs!  CDs are something else!  I mentioned before that we hear up to around 16,000 hz. -- 16,000 cycles per second.  Children can hear a lot higher than that—probably close to 20,000 hz.  So CD manufacturers decided that since people couldn’t really hear higher than 20,000 hz., they would not include sonic information above 20,000 hz.  There is a cut off filter that removes all sonic information above this on CDs. 

Now granted, we can’t hear above 20,000 Hz., but we may be able to receive information—higher harmonics of sound—that influence and affect our nervous system, our aura, and various other aspects of our bodies and our energy fields.  There may be sounds that are way beyond our realm of hearing that influence our health and energy field.  It’s been suggested that these higher frequencies that we can’t hear may really be aspects of higher planes of consciousness.  It could be possible.  By cutting off all frequencies above 20,000 hz., we’re being denied these energies.  But as I’ve said, things change.  And that hopefully will include digital playback.  We must not forget that cassettes do not reproduce frequencies from above 10 to 14,000 Hz. —it depends on the type of cassette.  They don’t have the capability to do this. Also, remember that many people do not have playback devices with an optimum fidelity range and can not accurately reproduce the sonics of the recording.  

When I do a presentation, I will play recorded examples of some of the phenomenon that I talk about.  And while I ask for a good sound system to be provided, I’ve been in situations where all that’s available is a small portable cassette or CD system.   One time I had a large room full of people and I was playing a recording on this tiny portable system.  The initial recording was quite wonderful, but what we listened to on the system was really poor.  And I remember joking to the audience that this was somewhat like watching “Gone With the Wind” on a three-inch television.  Something was missing.  Still, there were people at that presentation who had profound experiences from even that dismal playback unit.  So anything is possible.   I wonder what would have happened if those people who did have positive experiences had heard the sonics on something that came close to reproducing the actual recorded sounds?  

Any last questions?

Rick Martin: Do you have any insight or theory about which tone or note Archangel Gabriel’s horn might be?

Jonathan Goldman: Ha! (laughing) That’s great! The sound that Gabriel made was The Lost Chord! But how do you know he didn’t play an electric guitar?  Because everything is sacred.  Every sound is a part of the Divine.  

Seriously though, I work a lot with a being named Shamael, who is the Angel of Sound.  In texts, he is referred to as the Leader of the Cosmic Choir and is probably a direct manifestation of the Mutation energy form.  Anyway, I believe one of the reasons this angelic being, Shamael, has begun to manifest so much in the consciousness of those who work with sound and music healing is that we Westerners need a Divine Aspect to relate to when doing this work. 

I’d like to conclude by leaving you with the Shamael Invocation, which I always utilize whenever I am working with sound.  Many students of mine, as well as others around the planet also work with this invocation.  It is something I suggest doing if anyone is using sound as a sacred tool.  It is this: