It's well known that music has the power to soothe the savage beast.  This image goes back through Shakespeare to the stories of Pythagoras, who witnessed a young man, enraged after rejection by his lady love, putting dry sticks around her abode, plotting to burn the house down.

The Father of Mathematics noticed that a nearby flute player was playing in a certain mode, and that it seemed to enflame the man's anger. He went to the flute player and urged him to quickly change to a different mode, one that was softer, and more emotional. Within minutes, the young man stopped what he was doing, sat down and cried, his will to destroy replaced by the need to grieve.

Pythagoras, a scientist as well as a musician, did not allow flute players or certain modes in his school lest they generate the less-exalted emotions. Only the elevated modes, played with mathematical precision, activating the upper chakras! Lewis Bostwick emulated this by his instruction to tune the lower chakras down, and open the higher ones in order to meditate, have a peace-filled heart, see clearly and know ourselves as spiritual beings.

Not too much has changed in terms of the power music has to generate moods, emotions, crazy actions: the musical modes still exist. The mathematical relationship of one tone to another still causes the human body to react. The nerves still respond to strings, either stroked or screeching, the lungs to the wind sounds, and the heart thumps to the drum beats, fast or slow. All music seems to move from consonance, through various kinds of dissonance, demanding resolution back to consonance again. Pythagoras also studied the effect of consonant sounds, harmonious notes from the same overtone series, and dissonant ones, very close intervals, used in jazz a lot, or notes from different scales that collide on the ear drum.  Pythagoras discovered these overtones by listening to a blacksmith ringing his anvil with a hammer, and to the wind blowing through hollow reeds. They occur in Nature, therefore are sacred. In singing, vowel sounds carry morof the spiritual message of the tones, and singing tones only on vowels is associated with the sacred. Try slowing down the vowels of the word YAHWAY ­and you have a different experience from saying, Lord Jehovah.  As soon as you add text, you break up the flow.

As a flute player, I have studied all kinds of music, from classical to folk, rock, jazz, movie scores, middle eastern, new-age, and improvisations of all kinds. I am a dancer and have played for dancers. My niece and I are members of a tribal belly dance group, as well as healing circles. Music can be used to tune up a group, purify their hearts and voices. The power generated by the dancers is just about as powerful as the prayer group, and better grounded. For me dancing is prayer, since the cells of the body are emanating a feeling, a message, or releasing images. For all I know, dancers can possibly affect the weather, the environment, and be more than the butterfly moving its wings, triggering a needed rain storm, or even changing the direction of the wind. The elements of the body and the earth are one.

Sound and movement resonate as one, because the cells of our bodies respond to sound waves, especially when accompanied by imagery. It is so powerful that young people have often become the music's image, dressing the part, abandoning their original childlike essence to the compulsions of these images. The Gothic chick, eyes and fingernails blackened, looking like an unloved waif, is one such image often carried by a childlike soprano voice wailing in minor keys. Gangsta-rap, music pounding through loud speakers in low-riders is another, evoking fear, tough guys, guns, drive-by shootings. Hopefully this awareness that music can carry overused models will help them outgrow the old images and choose among those that bring happiness.

My witty friend, Michael Tamura, suggested we come up with a balance image, some pleasant light music, "Raindrops on roses, and whiskers on kittens?" and do some drive-by healings! The image is a carload of psychic healers with their hands out the windows, in high amusement, giving beams of healing light spontaneously to whomever crosses their path.  I've tried it; it's fun, as long as you postulate it is received in accordance with free will. Perish the thought that we should blow away someone's bad mood!

I am one of those movie watchers that can figure out the plots pretty quick, especially since the music gives it away. I keep myself busy until the dance scene. That's when the music and movements come together, and something close to heaven happens. People move as one, joyful in unity, and overcome all the ego's dark defenses. Viva Bollywood!

At UCLA I wrote a paper suggesting that world peace could be created through using the right music and simple dance steps that anyone could learn. Teach it at the U.N., get everyone singing in the same choir. I was barely tolerated for my views in spite of my four years of participation in the "Ethnomusicology department," with teachers from all over the world teaching their forms of music and dance. (It has since been deleted from the curriculum.) But imagine my joy when four decades later, my 3 year -old grandson made up a "Song of Love"  with the image of "all of the people around the earth, each in their costumes, dancing on a bridge" to his catchy tune. You can view it online: on www.youtube.com, tap in "Ra's song."   I wondered if my youthful views were passed down through my daughter's DNA to him. It's true that I studied belly dance while pregnant with her, and never quit dancing and yoga.

There is evidence that modern yoga evolved out of dance forms of the folk, the grounded people of the ancient times. Reaching for the sun, standing like a warrior, shooting arrows, placing the head upon the earth to reverse the currents, posing like a frog, a locust, a boat, a plow, a dog, a cobra. They were imitating Nature and moving to the pulse of their blood, the breath, their voices or the tunes of their handmade instruments. I almost remember playing a bamboo flute and using its sweet tone to heal people, all while standing like a tree on one leg, or perhaps in imitation of Krishna or Kali. I also remember, in the same echo-like way, playing a wooden flute with harps and drums and being sought after for sexual favors. Maybe that was just a decade ago! Nowadays, if you've seen, for example, Bonnie Raitt playing her bottle neck guitar, a similar amplification of sensual life ensues. Whoa!

Once you have found the music that makes you want to get up and dance, cherish it! My philosophy is, do your dance before the altar of your God, like King David danced before the altar of Yahweh. Dancing raises your vibrations even if you jerk like a scarecrow on a cross. It takes practice to become graceful. If you like to take walks, then you know how to dance to the music, then with the right music and partner, do the tango! Feel the heart rhythm, the pulse of blood, the in and out of your breath. It helps to know why and for whom you dance, so you must feel affinity for themusicians who create the sounds to which you move. (Don't steal their music --­ pay for it!) Be present in your movements, and let them express your heart, giving meaning your dance. Yes, it means getting unstuck from other people's movements, and to find your own natural way. Being alittle corny or dramatic is loads better than being stuck in apathy. Nothing is more empowering that the feeling that your spirit stepped into the center of each chakra and moved you!

Am I possibly promoting a new form of Umbanda or Santeria? Yes, but with the intention that the Divine Being who possesses your body is YOU. Having witnessed a high school friend get possessed by a drunken spirit who had lousy rhythm, at the last reunion, I do not feel this is rare. (full story is at http:seerinthevalley.com) People get possessed all the time, or at least hypnotized and programmed by some form of words and images. Why not own the fact that we have the power to create our own sounds, images and music, just as my grandson did? What a gift!

One of the ancient, rediscovered principles of moving cells with sound is toning. I've been toning ever since I read the Cayce teachings on tones and colors correlating with the chakras. Consider the difference between the written, spoken, and sung words. Reading scripture allows your mind to embrace the words and interpret the meanings. A Bible loving preacher, reading from scripture will speak the gospel with his spin on it, which is still part of traditional church services, though many struggle to stay awake in spite of the threats of hellfire. But when the choir takes the same gospel and sings it in 4 or 5 part harmony with accompaniment, soloist and sing along chorus, you've got a hair-raising event. Anytime you take a word and sing it, move with it, you give it power and its meaning empowers you. It has been scientifically demonstrated that one word has the power to change your DNA!

As an author, I've often done readings on the radio with call-ins. Once a man called in who said he had cancer, and his aura showed me shadows of imminent death. As a security guard he had disowned his body while sitting in front of the television for a long time. I asked him, besides watching TV, what did he really want to do with his life? He said, "Write my own song."  I asked him, what would the words be about? He said, "About the love in my soul."  I said, "Okay, get to it. The working title of your song is "The love in my soul."  I told him sing into these words and to write as though his life depended on it. I really don't know if he actually did it or not, or died with his song unsung. I'd like to believe that it is possible that his song became more important than anything else, and he healed himself in the endeavor of bringing it forth.

I do know that many people, when faced with death, will come out with something that expresses their soul. My sister, a superb classical cellist with degrees in psychology and philosophy, surprised me by singing a Mozart-like tune, with the words, "I'm ready, I'm ready, to live my life in God, Every breath I take, every move I make, will bring me close to God." The shock to me was that she had always been an atheist, until cancer treatments took away her vocation. She somehow found the words to sing, to express the verses of her soul. After that there was less tension in her, one less unresolved feeling. She died three days after, and I witnessed a graceful, beautiful death, her last breath a soft sigh.

Yet music and dance is about life; the physical body, mind and spirit are natural with movement, stillness, movement, rest. Heartbeats, measured and numbered, are the limits of our soul's journey in the flesh. We must use this precious time and trust in the timing of our Creator to spontaneously enter in and dance to the beat of our hearts, generating the sound of eternal life in our cells. During rest periods, I seek the silence and the stillness, but never do I quite hear nothing. There is always the pulse of blood, birdsong, the exhalations, the rain and the wind.

 Franci Prowse
Anza Sanctuary of Healing Arts

Franci Prowse, undergrad in music and dance at UCLA, studied theater and religion at Occidental College. After years in the music business she entered the Berkeley Psychic Institute, graduating in 1975. Since then she married, raised 4 children, founded the Anza Sanctuary of Healing Arts, divorced, wrote a novel and several metaphysical manuals, founding White Rose Millennium Press. With Cleve Backster, she published a well-known science book, Primary Perception, which she promotes. Still making her living doing clairvoyant readings, she also teaches several forms of spiritual healing, plays music and dances. See www.anzasanctuary.com or www.seerinthevalley.com

You can also view some interview clips of Franci Prowse on Youtube.com--look for "Hunger to Remember the Unlimited Self" or on www.massawakening.com

This article was reprinted by permission of the Author after having been first published in the May/June issue of "Psychic Reader" Magazine.