PrimaSounds® Listening Guidance

Please remember that to save space these are lower quality sound files. They are not true copies and do not give an accurate picture of PrimaSounds. Further, most people don't have a good sound system hooked up to their computers. What you are hearing through the small computer speakers is distorted and does not begin to accurately reproduce the exact frequencies needed for the full effects of PrimaSounds. This is especially true since PrimaSounds uses very low sound frequencies and a full spectrum of "natural seventh" harmonics. What you are hearing now is like a small match flame compared to a big bonfire. So the most basic listening instruction is to get the original audio CDs and listen to PrimaSounds over the best high fidelity equipment possible. A good sub-woofer helps a lot!

PrimaSounds should always be listened to in a quiet, undisturbed environment, typically with eyes closed, and the back and head in a comfortable, level (preferable upright) position. The sounds should be felt with the entire body, not just heard with the ears. Let go of any inner dialogue and focus on the novel sensations and feelings at hand. If you have trouble silencing the inner chatter of your mind, focus your attention back to the slowly changing tones, the rhythmic beating of the harmonics, and on the sound vibrations themselves. Play PrimaSounds loud enough to directly feel the vibrations all over your body, and particularly in your stomach, spine and head. For that reason headphones diminish the total effect and should be avoided.

The first level of listening enjoyment requires only that you get yourself comfortable and just fall into the sounds. Let go and relax. Don't try and analyze what you hear, think about infinity, or better yet, don't think at all. Try and remove yourself from the inner dialogue, to step out of the endless stream of worries, concerns and plans. You can get back into all of that later. For now treat yourself to a time out, a time to just relax and do nothing but feel your body and sense the bath of sound energies running all over you. Listen to the many new and unusual sounds and frequencies which you have never heard before. The deeper and more intensely you listen the more you will hear. There are layers of sound and constant subtle movements in what may at first seem to be static or slowly moving sound forms. If you let go, the sounds will carry you inward and invoke intense feelings of joy and release.

From time to time while listening try turning your head or slightly varying your position in the room. Notice how the sounds themselves vary as your ears enter different parts of the standing wave patterns created by these sounds. By paying attention to these vibrations, and going with, or not opposing, the resonance effects created by these sound waves, your discursive thinking, anxieties and tension will naturally be replaced by positive sensations and feelings.

You may become light headed and feel like you are falling inward. If this is a novel experience for you, there is no need to be alarmed. The dizzy sensations and feelings of head expansion will pass, and when the sounds are over, you will be completely cognizant and coherent, usually even more clear headed than before, and very calm. Although your consciousness may alter while you are listening to these sounds, it is temporary, and you can open your eyes at any time and quickly return to normal, waking consciousness.

In our experiments with PrimaSounds since 1973 we have exposed hundreds of "normal" people to these sound vibrations without adverse effects. Instead it has produced a variety of remarkable positive effects. Nevertheless common sense suggests that epileptics, or persons with mental illness, brain disorders or any type of extreme medical condition should exercise caution and consult their supervising physician. The acoustic effects of PrimaSounds can be quite powerful, and no research has yet been performed as to its effects on persons with disease, schizophrenia or other pathological states and disorders. Although many speculate that PrimaSounds can have profound healing effects, and the myths surrounding this type of music from the past suggests this (ie - Orpheus), we do not yet have any hard evidence on this potential application of PrimaSounds. (We have received some anecdotal reports of incredible effects, but no attempts have been made to try and verify them.) All evidence to date has involved basically healthy people whose aim was development and transcendence. Their only "illness", if any, concerned the normal stress, tensions and neurosis of modern chaotic life.

So unless you have such an extreme medical condition, go ahead and enjoy the light-headedness, and let all of the tension, negative emotions and stress flow out of you. Strong images, visions or fantasies may come; just remain with your eyes closed, and either enjoy the visualizations, or if you wish, switch your attention back to the music. Listen to the subtle changes in tonal forms within the continuous slow flow of the music. Relax and feel the sound vibrations in your head, spine, stomach, and other parts of your body as is shown in the chart. Notice how the sounds stimulate one or more of the seven primary energy centers, the chakras.

Here is another poetic or visionary method for listening to PrimaSounds: "Try imagining that you are whirling your love energies all around you, and at the same time, understand yourself as a flute. Then after some time a deep and profound breath will arise up from your lower passions. When this happens you will have made yourself empty and you can then open the particular vocation of each individual chakra." (This image is taken from the first volume of the School of Wisdom Series From Dark To Life by Arnold Keyserling (School of Wisdom 1991).

As you become more familiar with these energies, by whatever listening method you employ, you can begin to easily relax and to differentiate and focus on one or another chakra as they are stimulated by the sounds. You may then want to change your style of listening to get to the second and third levels first described in the Introduction. Begin by willing your attention to the physical location of each of the chakras. Feel the part of your body where each should be located. Then sense out the void, the black hole of the energy field itself, the chakra. Once you have found the vortex field keep your will, your attention, focused on it rather than the physical location. Now imagine the cosmic energies flowing through the field. Then allow it to really happen. Abandon expectations, but focus instead on sensing the energies that are already there. You may feel a tremendous surge or a heating up of your energy and even your body. Then when itfeels right, move on to another chakra and start the process anew. Some may be easier to open than others. This will probably take considerable time and repeated efforts, so don't expect success right away.

You can learn which are your strongest and weakest energies by direct experience. Thereafter you can use the vibrations to focus on and amplify your weaker energies to try and achieve a balanced whole. By activating and balancing all of your energies you will assist in the creation of the necessary continuity between the different states of consciousness.

It is critical that PrimaSounds be played on quality high fidelity equipment. Since the sound waves have a direct effect on a person, the quality of the production of the vibrations is important. Poor equipment, especially speakers, can cause distortion detrimental to your enjoyment of the music. So if you do not have good equipment, especially speakers, to listen with, do not turn up the volume too high. Better yet, buy better equipment.

PrimaSounds are not another type of "New Age" music designed to be heard as background sounds. It is designed for deep inner experiences and self discovery and so demands your undivided time and attention. Although some people may enjoy it when used as background mood music, others may be annoyed by it. Also, some people do not enjoy listening to PrimaSounds when they have a headache or are ill. Others, however, have reported various types of restorative effects. As mentioned, no systematic research has yet been done in this later area, and so no medical claims of any kind are made, beyond the non-medical claim of stress relief based on extensive personal experience and observations.

After a PrimaSounds session, just as the music stops, try paying careful attention to how you feel at that instant. Notice if or how you are different. How does your head feel? Have your senses changed? The first few times you try this experiment, try putting "the difference" in words or symbols and write it down. Then later go back and think about what you wrote. Modify this experiment on another occasion: after the silence at the end of the PrimaSounds session don't try to describe the difference to yourself or others, instead try and keep experiencing it for as long as possible. Strive to remain with chatter free clear Awareness for as long as possible; when you later forget, and then still later realize that you forgot, don't be harsh on yourself, be glad you remembered and let yourself slip back into the pure awareness. Observe the other energies from out of this awareness. For best results at first stay in silence by yourself and arrange in advance not to be disturbed.

At another time try these experiments with someone you know well and love. After the music stops compare their descriptions with yours, or in the second level experiments, observe their inner silence, notice their energy from out of your silence. Try these experiments with a group of like minded people.

The other way to use PrimaSounds is to listen to one tone at a time. Each of the seven tones (five of one octave and the first two notes of the next) are played solo at the end of the CD or tape. The first note played corresponds to the first chakra, the second note to the second chakra, and so forth up to the seventh. The single tones can help you to focus on the different energies, to tune into each. Again this can be particularly helpful for initial orientation to the energies, differentiating the existing energies and awakening the weaker ones. Then later the individual tones can be selectively used to work on your weakest energies and bring them all into balance.

Listen carefully to each tone, play them loud enough to feel them vibrate in your body. Focus your attention on the physical location of the chakra sounded. For instance, when the third chakra, manipura, is playing focus your attention on your stomach area at the back of your spine. Listen with your stomach, not your ears. Center your feelings in this area of your body. Then sense the void space, the reverse black hole near this part of your body. Perceive the amplification effects, how the sound energizes this field. Sense the cosmic energies flowing into this world through this chakra. On another occasion think of the particular consciousness and potential which goes with the third layer of energies. Think of Feeling, the impulses and desires, the Subconscious and Dreaming, the vocation of the helper, anxiety relief and recognition. Then most importantly in this and other exercises, let go of the thoughts and anything else and just jump into it, feel the feeling energy.

Play the seven tones through several times in silence trying this methodology. On another occasion when trying this exercise hum or sing along with each tone as it is played. Notice the beating effect when your voice approaches the same frequency as the tone. When your voice is exactly in tune the beating will stop. Try singing louder and louder if you have trouble tuning in. It may take some time and practice to develop this skill, but when you do, notice how the intensity of the experience is heightened, how the air in your lungs, throat and sinuses resonates with the bioenergies and amplifies the tones even more.

Even when listening to the music itself many people find it enjoyable to occasionally sing or chant along, with long sustained tones, very much like the Tibetan monks. Take deep breaths, and slowly sing out the tones that feel right to you. The effects can be quite remarkable. If you are in tune with the tones played, the resonance effects can be significantly increased. You may wish to listen for "beating" and adjust your tone so that it is in tune with one of the fundamental tones then playing. Or you may wish to balance the tones played in a way that feels right to you by singing a tone not played.

These are just suggestions for listening, you may develop your own methods and techniques that work for you. Esoteric Music is new, there are few rules, just take care of your hearing and don't play PrimaSounds too loud. This can be tempting as the louder the sounds, the more intense the effects. If your ears do start to hurt or bother you in any way, then stop, and switch to silent meditation.

Over time by observation of your energies from out of the inner silence, either while listening to PrimaSounds, just after, or at other times during the day when you spontaneously awake, particularly in crisis, you will learn which of your chakras are strong, and which are weak. It is important to know yourself well enough to know which energies need the most work. Then use your time accordingly. Like the elements striving to fill the outer shell with 8 electrons, the soul strives to have all chakras fully and equally activated, all states of consciousness integrated, but this takes years of work and mature patience.

Since PrimaSounds is based on the one interval which does not fit in the diatonic and 12 tone system used by almost all other musical scales in the West, the acoustic seventh, the harmonics of the PrimaSounds scale sound unpleasant, sour - dissonant - if you try to combine Prima Sounds with regular external music. For that reason I did not pursue some early experiments at combining the two forms of music. Although some superficial good results are possible, in the long run they don't go well together at all. Its like water and oil. The oil of regular music distracts and pollutes the water of PrimaSounds. The rhythms interfere with the more subtle rhythms that you can hear with experience in PrimaSounds. The presence of melody is also very counterproductive. Melody is antithetical to the random effects of the Strange Attractor. It prevents spontaneity, and interferes with being in a flow of the moment. It puts you instead in time, so does rhythm in a different way. I could go on, but in short, I suggest you resist the temptation to try and combine other forms of music with PrimaSounds.

Detailed listening instructions are also contained in the 38 page book by Prof. Keyserling and Ralph Losey which comes with the first CD in the series: Life Tuning With PrimaSounds: the Discovery of Chakra Music.