Most of us learned in elementary science class that the human body is composed of around 60% water. It’s even more so for infants (75-78%). You also probably learned early on that water is a molecule consisting of two hydrogen atoms bonded by a single oxygen atom (H2O). That’s about as far as most students got in the science of water, or molecules, or atoms for that matter.
But did you know that atoms—all atoms—are in constant motion?
In science nerd-dom, this is referred to as the Kinetic Theory of Matter, which dictates:
- All matter is made up of tiny particles (atoms, molecules, or ions) that are always in constant, random motion.
- The speed and type of motion depend on temperature and the forces between particles.
- Higher temperature = faster movement = higher kinetic energy (energy of motion).
Solid matter like ice cubes, handguns, and those overdue library books you forgot about have particles tightly packed that vibrate in place. They’re sort of like an older white guy at a concert, just leaning a little in tune with the music.
The particles in liquids are moving faster and can roll around, flowing here and there. Keeping with the live music analogy, these are the hand waving guys and gals who sway with the groove; they go with the flow.
Gas particles are the wild ones. They just let it all hang out, going wild, with dancing and spinning and not a care in the world. They fill whatever space is available and sometimes blow stuff up.
In short, all matter is in motion, including the molecules in your body that make up your muscles, veins, blood, brain, bones, and organs. In part 1, we discussed what frequencies are and how the specific frequency of 440Hz came to be the standard for all tuning and recordings.
In this round, we’ll discuss how matter (specifically the matter composing the human body) might be affected by the music we hear, the words we speak, and the way we worship.
A Design Feature, Not A Flaw
We know that everything is made up atoms, and atoms are in constant motion, vibrating and oscillating due to thermal energy, which generates specific frequencies.
“Existence is vibration. The entire universe is in a state of vibration, and each thing generates its own frequency, which is unique.…You might think, Existence is vibration? Even this table? This chair? My body? How can everything that can be seen and touched be vibration? It is indeed difficult to believe that things you can pick up with your hands and examine—things like wood, rocks, and concrete—are all vibrating.
But now the science of quantum mechanics generally acknowledges that substance is nothing more than vibration. When we separate something into its smallest parts, we always enter a strange world where all that exists is particles and waves.”
— Masaru Emoto,1 The Hidden Messages in Water
And yet, the universe is so intricately designed that atoms themselves are made of smaller parts, each of which is subject to its own complexity of movement:
“In fact, atoms are not fundamental building blocks. The atom has structure. It was found experimentally that the atom is made of a small nucleus surrounded by a cloud of electrons. As experiments probed the nucleus, structure was again found. The nucleus of the atom is made of individual protons and neutrons, which are themselves made of fractionally charged particles called quarks.”
— What is the World Made Of? Cornell University, March 1995
Going back to elementary science class, molecules inside us are vibrational, and highly susceptible to outside frequencies. Not only that, they experience resonance with certain frequencies (more on that in a minute).
What does it mean for us, then, when we bombard our bodies with harmful frequencies?
How might those who seek to harm us use those frequencies?
And what might nefarious actors do to divorce us from spirit-lifting, healing frequencies?
“And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
— Ephesians 5:18-20 (NKJV)
Taking all of that science into account, it’s worth noting what frequencies our instruments, words, and voices are emitting, and how the words we speak and the sounds we make are resonating with the world around us. There’s that word again: resonance.
I guess we better define it.
What is resonance?
The wordy-nerdy definition usually goes something like this:
Resonance is the phenomenon where a system or object responds with increased amplitude (vibration, oscillation, or reaction) when driven at a specific frequency that matches its natural frequency.
If you find that definition kinda confusing, don’t be discouraged. That’s because it’s trying to generalize a term that’s actually highly specific to whatever is being discussed.
There are lots of different kinds of resonance: mechanical resonance, nuclear magnetic resonance, electrical resonance, mesomerism (which deals with chemicals), orbital resonance (think astronomy and celestial motion), and several others.
These entail complex relationships, but they all operate on the same basic concept: Resonance is nature’s way of transferring or increasing energy when frequencies match.
“When a tuning fork is hit with a rubber hammer, creating a la sound, and a singer responds with a la, the tuning fork and the voice create a single frequency sound wave. This is called resonance.…When frequencies are fundamentally incompatible, they cannot resonate. We cannot accept what is fundamentally different from us.”
— Masaru Emoto, The Hidden Messages in Water
For our purposes in discussing resonance, I want to focus on acoustic resonance, and also perhaps what some refer to as social resonance.
Breaking Glass and Healing Brains
Once again we visit the elementary science class. Most of us know that if you turn a soundmaking device to the right pitch (frequency), you can use that sound to break a wine glass.
Or, if a jet plane flies fast enough it will break the sound barrier2 (and also a lot of glass, if it’s at a low enough altitude). The sound barrier shattering is an example of sound causing a pressure shock wave. But the wine glass experiment is different, an example of acoustic resonance.
When the frequency of the sound bombards the wine glass, it vibrates. Once that sound frequency matches the wine glass’s natural frequency (400-2500Hz depending on the glass) it resonates by breaking.3
The same principle exists with a cochlear implant for those hard of hearing. This process is much more complex but essentially the device filters sounds, bypasses damaged areas of the ear, and distributes them directly to nerves in the ear so they can resonate with the brain.
In humans, resonance is a physical response our bodies have to an outside stimulant. It’s also an emotional one. We respond a certain way when words and sounds overwhelm us. Brain scientists call this the Default Mode Network (DMN) but you might have heard it referred to as a schema, which is sort of a mental flow chart we create for ourselves dictating how we respond to situations, subconsciously and instinctively.
Mental schemas and DMNs are actually different but highly intertwined, both contributing to that flight, fight, freeze, or fawn4 response that humans have in traumatic situations.
Words and sounds illicit those responses, for better and for worse.
“Toxic negative thinking produces increased activity in the DMN, and activity in the [Task Positive Network] TPN5 decreases. This results in maladaptive, depressive ruminations and a decrease in the ability to solve problems. This makes us feel foggy, confused, negative, and depressed.
God is a god of order and balance, and he has fashioned our spirit, soul, and body this way. So it is quite simple; when we don’t follow his ordinance, there will be consequences. The brain moves into unbalanced chaos.”
— Caroline Leaf, Switch On Your Brain: The Key to Peak Happiness, Thinking, and Health
There is a well-established connection between the sounds we hear and the way our bodies respond. Foul words can create foul moods; grating music can lead to agitation and physical pain.
Science, then, merely confirms what His word and our bodies teach us: The frequencies we bombard ourselves with matter.
So this begs the question we posited in part 1: Does it matter which frequencies we use in worship?
And here’s another question: How have instruments (worship) and voices been used throughout history on the fields of battle?
The Holy Hand Grenade
“When I and all who are with me blow our trumpets, then from all around the camp blow yours and shout, “For the Lord and for Gideon.”
— Judges 7:18
You can’t get away from the fact that God uses words and sounds all over the Bible in conjunction with displays of power, or proceeding miracles, or providing comfort, or many other purposes.
One of the most dramatic, though, is in the book of Judgesoften where God commands Gideon to use sound to defeat an entire army.
“Gideon and the hundred men with him reached the edge of the camp at the beginning of the middle watch, just after they had changed the guard. They blew their trumpets and broke the jars that were in their hands. The three companies blew the trumpets and smashed the jars. Grasping the torches in their left hands and holding in their right hands the trumpets they were to blow, they shouted, “A sword for the Lord and for Gideon!” While each man held his position around the camp, all the Midianites ran, crying out as they fled.
When the three hundred trumpets sounded, the Lord caused the men throughout the camp to turn on each other with their swords.”
— Judges 7:19-22
The Lord could have accomplished this miracle without the trumpets. He could have slain all of the Midianites quietly in the night. So why the sound blast?
I have no idea, but I do know that the shofar—the ram’s horn instrument used by Gideon and his 300 men in Judges 7—typically produced a fundamental frequency around 376 Hz, which is slightly higher than an F note. But since most of us don’t use shofars in our our worship sets (and probably don’t want to), perhaps it would be spiritually wise to find out what frequencies are being blasted from our sound systems on Sunday morning.
“Our lives contain a seeming infinity of rhythms, with vibrations at the atomic and molecular levels and within biochemical reaction rates. The physiological correlates of the rhythms of the breath, heartbeat, and brain have been extensively studied and shown to be intimately related to our emotions, thoughts, and psychospiritual state.”
— David Muehsam and Carlo Ventura, Life Rhythm as a Symphony of Oscillatory Patterns: Electromagnetic Energy and Sound Vibration Modulates Gene Expression for Biological Signaling and Healing, 2014
This, friends, is how the natural world operates. It’s the way God designed it, and it’s also how the enemy perverts and uses it.
“When you go into battle in your own land against an enemy who is oppressing you, sound a blast on the trumpets. Then you will be remembered by the Lord your God and rescued from your enemies. Also at your times of rejoicing—your appointed festivals and New Moon feasts—you are to sound the trumpets over your burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, and they will be a memorial for you before your God. I am the Lord your God.”
— Numbers 10:9-10
In part three of this series I’d like to explore the controversy associated with why the standard pitch presets are at 440Hz. Recent science and historian research has tackled this topic, and an ugly conclusion is taking shape:
“According to existing scientific studies, music tuned at 432 Hz, compared to 440 Hz, can significantly decrease the heart rate and slightly decrease mean respiratory rate values; it results in better cardiovascular benefits including slowing heart rate and it promotes relaxation. It significantly decreases dental anxiety levels, significantly improves the sleep scores of patients with spinal cord injuries and leads to increased levels of perceived arousal.”
— Pilot Aquaphotomic Study of the Effects of Audible Sound on Water Molecular Structure, Stoilov et al, 2022
It should come as no surprise that the link between sound frequencies, our bodies, and the international standardization of sound frequency has a lot to do with psychological warfare.
It also may not surprise you that the work of American and German scientists in the 1930s and 1940s was pivotal in setting that standard just in time for a major war, and coincidentally timed with unprecedented breakthroughs in the technology of music and film…and propaganda.
And just for fun if you’ve never heard of a Holy Hand Grenade:
If you missed part 1, you can find it here or click the thumbnail below. Subscribe for part 3, coming soon.
Frequencies, Worship, & the 440Hz Dilemma (part 1)
If you tune an instrument, chances are you’re tuning it to 440Hz, and probably unwittingly because 440Hz is the standard all instrument tuning apps are set to by default. We can change that in the settings, but how many people actually do so?
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[Post Image by Miazor Ekom on Unsplash, not AI.]
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Antichrists & End Times: Eschatology Gone Wild
If you were a Christian in the early 2000’s, you probably read Left Behind, and perhaps other books in the bestselling series. If you didn’t read it or watch the movies, or if you came to Jesus a decade or so later, consider yourselves lucky; you probably learned better end times theology than many of us.
Footnotes
- Japanese researcher Masaru Emoto gained prominence with his experiments with water crystal formation. He found that exposing water to various pieces of music correlated with the structure of the crystals formed; beautiful music played in harmonious frequencies produced dazzling water crystals; foul, grating music (or negative lyrics) created visually ordinary, or unpleasant crystals, or none at all. Emoto is not a Christian, and has been labeled a “quack pseudoscientist” by the Wikipedia class of paid experts who rail against raw milk and heavy metal detoxing in favor of “safe and effective” vaccines, glyphosate, prescription everything, and wearable devices. While I don’t agree with his philosophy or his “spirituality,” his experiments are interesting and noteworthy, and align with Biblical truths such as “life and death are in the power of the tongue” (Proverbs 18:21).
↩︎ - Breaking the sound barrier—or creating a sonic boom—denotes a phenomenon that occurs when an object approaches the speed of sound. A sudden increase in aerodynamic drag occurs when an aircraft approaches 770 miles per hour (AKA Mach 1) resulting in a massive sound wave that can shake, rattle, or even break substances within a certain radius. You might think of this like the waves that ripple along the surface of a lake after a boat speeds past.
↩︎ - Setting up this experiment for science students is surprisingly complex. If you’re ambitious and want to try it, here is a step by step tutorial.
↩︎ - This term is gaining mainstream acceptance among trauma counselors. Fawning is a survival tactic of going along with abuse in order to survive the situation, hoping to mitigate future harm or provide a opportunity to escape afterwards. In less extreme cases, this might manifest as a tendency to be a people pleaser.
↩︎ - The Task Positive Network is the part of the brain that activates when one is mentally focused on a task, such as planning and decision making. ↩︎