The Power of Music
to Create and Destroy
Music has the power to create and
destroy
because sound is one of the most powerful creative and destructive
forces
in the universe. The universe was created, in part, by
sound.
"In the beginning was the Word" (John 1:1), and by the Word spoken, by
mighty fiats spoken like "Let there be light" (Genesis 1:3), God
created
the vast universe. By sound the worlds were framed. If the
sound of the Word can help create a universe, just think of
how destructive sound can be if it is misused! Unfortunatelly,
and tragically, sound is being grossly misused --
in most of today's music. This is not just my belief.
There is scientific evidence for it.
In 1968, Dorothy Retallack began a
series
of experiments testing the effects of music on plants. She had
one
group of plants close to a radio playing classical music, and another
group
close to one playing rock music. The plants close to the
classical
music grew toward the radio, one of them even twining itself lovingly
around
it. On
the other hand, the plants close to the rock broadcasts grew away
from the radio as if trying to get away. The growth of some
plants
close to the rock music was stunted. The roots were short and
scrawny,
their leaves were small, and the plants died. The plants close to
the classical music, however, flourished. Many others conducted
experiments
testing the effects of music on plants. Their conclusions were
the
same. Plants near classical music
grew faster, larger and more abundantly than plants near rock music
that did very poorly. Articles were written such as "Music that
Kills
Flowers", "Bach or Rock: Ask Your Flowers", and the question was
asked "If rock is doing that to plants, man, I wonder what it is doing
to me?" Plants don't have an intelligence as we do, so they can't
be prejudiced against rock, and for classical, music.
Dr. John Diamond tested the effect of
rock
music on the body. He found that rock music has a weakening
affect on the body, that it does physical harm to the body in the
long run. The following is extracted from "The Music in Your
Life"
from his book YourBody Doesn't Lie: I tested the effect
of
rock music kinesiologically,
using hundreds of subjects. I found that listening to rock
music frequently causes all the muscles in the body
to go weak. The normal pressure required to overpower a strong
deltoid muscle in an adult male is about 40 to
50 pounds. When rock music is played, it is only 10 to 15
pounds. If rock music weakens muscles, it probably weakens all
the
internal organs, which means that it could weaken the heart,
which
is a muscle.
Rock music does much more than weaken
and
harm the physical body, it shatters the soul through all the chakras
(spiritual
centers). The soul is like a delicate crystal which can be easily
cracked and shattered if it
has not been sealed and protected by God. An analogy of the
power of sound to shatter crystal is the famous commercial, "Is it
live,
or is it Memorex?", in which Ella Fitzgerald shatters a glass simply by
singing a note.
Rock and jazz (and other forms of music)
cause the energy to be released from the higher chakras and to descend
to the lower chakras. The pounding beat of rock, and the jagged
rhythms
of jazz, forces the energy downward. This energy concentrates and
builds up in the lower chakras, and it must be released.
Unfortunately,
it is often expressed in sex, violence, and destruction. Rock
and jazz are greatly responsible for an overemphasis of the sexual
nature,
for the sexual culture, and a debasing of life. "Rock 'n' roll"
was
a ghetto slang term,