Color, Music and Vibration & Rural harmony

The simple thesis of Bernard Jensen’s brief (63 pages) book Color, Music and Vibration (Bernard Jensen, Escondido, CA, 1988) is that everything in life and nature derives from vibration: light, color, sound, music, heat, the ocean’s waves and the countours of mountains. Drawing on the fruitage of half a century of research and observation, the distinguished and internationally acclaimed author regales us not only with a plethora of proof, but also shows how this wisdom can be employed to add enjoyment to life and avoid many of its pitfalls.

  This influence begins even before birth. According to the experiments of a Florida researcher, the unborn are stressed by rock and roll. It makes them restless and increases their heartbeat. Exposure to classical or even ordinary soft melodies exerts a soothing influence on the fetal child, but when rock and roll is played again, it once more begins to kick restlessly.

  Some adults may claim they enjoy this invasive sonic phenomena, but it has been linked to the high incidence (said to be 60 percent) of abnomal heartbeat among disc jockeys playing it. Does the noise around airports have a negative impact? People living close to them have more physical and mental problems than residents of quiet areas. Even animals are affected by different kinds of music. In an experiment with a loudspeaker placed under water, fish swam away from rock and roll, but toward the source of soothing sounds.

  An Italian reseacher has pinpointed specific therapeutic results from playing the music of some famous composers. Examples: Mozart can relieve rheumatic pains; Shubert insomnia; Handel helps alleviate emotional problems; Bach soothes indigestion; the famous hymn “Amazing Grace” has produced numerous healings. According to another researcher, listening to lively music prior to a meal slows digestive secretions and influences the brain to facilitate weight reducing regimens. But it might not be adviseable to listen to such music while driving:--it tends to augment aggressive behavior and hence increase accidents.

  Colors also have specific impacts and stimulate various kinds of experience. Red energizes; beets and red cabbage are tonics. Dr. Jensen tells of a lecturer who took just a small amount of red cayenne pepper before his apearances and fairly seemed to shine! It can also raise blood pressure. If people are put to work inside a red room, initially their output will tend to increase, but after a while they may become quarrelsome. Red cars are also the most accident prone. But if one wishes to keep one’s feet warm in winter, red socks are recommended.

  Orange light was found by the famous horticulturist Luther Burbank to accelerate growth in plants. Mentally, it stimulates ambition and creativity. Overexposure to it can produce restlessness, nervousness, pride. As for yellow, the term as slang is correct in equating it with cowardice. Negatively it is also linked with prejudice and sloth. On the positive side, yellow brings joy, wisdom, intuition, creativity, spirituality. It belongs in the health seeker’s kitchen: foods of this color, like squashes and bananas, are natural laxatives.

  Green is healing, peacful, soothing; it just might help the infant who is teething. Negatively, it tends to materialism. It is the color of rebirth and spring. Perhaps the author’s most enthusiastic superlative is in behalf of chlorophyll, the green pigment in plants that traps sunlight, which he calls “the greatest rejuvenator.”

  Blue, the sky’s color, suggests and promotes fulfillment. It is soothing and capable of lowering the blood pressure. Sky-blue clothing is the most protective from the tropic’s solar rays. Together with green, it can stimulate the highest creativity. Too much, of course, can induce the “blues.”

  Indigo represents the healing crisis--old toxins are washed out and replaced with new tissues. Associated with Saturn and Saturday, indigo can be spirituality at its best. Violet is the color of royalty and also of high spirituality. St. Germain used it in healing; Wagner composed his greatest works in rooms decorated with purple velvet drapes. It has the most rapid vibration of the rainbow’s seven colors. It also fades most rapidly.

  White light, the vibration of the Christ consciousness, contains all colors blended as a unity. Black is the opposite, death’s color; most evil deeds are done in the black of the night. Dr. Jensen discourages the wearing of black, epecially in the tropics. Brown is Mother Earth’s color. Negatively, it repels. Dr. Jensen urges that it, along with grey, not be chosen for clothing.

  This fascinating slim volume can be likened to a meal’s appetizer: enjoyable, whetting one’s appetite for more, much more, which the author assures us is definitely out there.

  —Dr. Paul Freiwirth

  FARMING AND SPIRITUAL GROWTH

  Jean Carter’s Rural Harmony (Dorrance Publishing Co., Inc., 1997) can be read as “just a story” or as an aid on the path to enlightenment. It might be an excellent book to give a “beginner” in spiritual truths, to awaken him or her to inner meanings and to provide routes for exiting problems. Although written with simplicity, it probes profound issues and can awaken interest in life’s mysteries.

  Assuming the form of a novel does not prevent Rural Harmony from offering good advice for spiritual evolution. As Pierre Teilhard defined it, “Evolution is a spiritual process.” From another vantage it has been observed that “First one must be aware there is a need to grow.” In this reviewer’s personal experience, only those who are dissatisfied with “churchology” will elect to investigate occult or metaphysical teachings. If their interest is genuine and persistent, their commitment to truth will enable them to grow in wisdom, stature and grace. It seems one needs to experience a “divine discontent,” a restless yearning for deeper understanding, before one begins to make appreciable spiritual growth. It soon becomes clear that blaming God, genes, or the environment for one’s difficulties is but a sign of spiritual immaturity. One will in time admit, “Okay, I accept reincarnation and my present difficulties because somewhere, sometime--through ignorance or innocence--I set into motion the causes of the problems I am now experiencing. So here I am. I recognize the truth of my responsibility for my life. Through the help of my indwelling Lord I can emerge from these seeming problems.” Can one do that? Yes. Rural Harmony makes clear, without preaching, that the existence of a higher order enables us to bring light and order to our lives.

  Many readers will realize that this is a “how-to” book. Principles of spiritual evolution are unobtrusively woven into the story. Its thrust is how to find God, or one’s reason for being, in this life. In today’s world we clearly see that no man is an island and that all humans are bound together spiritually, ecologically, economically, and mentally--in every conceivable way.

  In their daily experiences Faith and John Wells identify basic truths whose conscious implementation help them to evolve spiritually. Doubtless they would be the first to admit that they have not “arrived,” but they would heartily testify to real advancement on the spiritual path. Initially, John seems “to ride Faith’s prayer kites,” but he too has his strengths and each complements the other in their combined ongoingness.

  Life seems to flow smoothly for the couple after they moved from the suburbs to a farm in a new area of the country--as though they were first given the opportunity to establish themselves before challenges appeared. They learn the patience and forbearance that reliance on natural forces requires, and are chagrinned by their former presumption of telling God how to run His Universe.

  One of my favorite sections in Rural Harmony describes the couple receiving two city boys from the Fresh Aire Program, run under the auspices of the now defunct New York Herald Tribune. The result of a number of episodes of love-at-work is that Faith and John Wells felt guided to establish a Farm Summer Home.

  Many inner teachings unfold through a character named Jed who seems to be a present day exemplar of Christian principles. In his conversations with Faith and John, Jed gives deep interpretations of scripture. His insights into Lazarus’ resurrection are particularly interesting and revealing. In Christ Jesus’ words “Loose him and let him go” Jed sees an admonition to behold the new man, the alive entity heading toward a Christ goal. Jed’s teaching encourages us to behold latent perfection, the inner Christ Self, in those around us--and in our own Self--and then work to help actualize that vision. Jed does fade from the book, as Jesus told His disciples that He had to leave, for unless He leaves them they would continue to depend on His physical presence.

  Through Faith’s prayer work there is an outreach to a senior citizen, Jane Allis, in a nursing home where Faith later became a practical nurse. We read the story of the stray dog the children named Pal; the failure of the corn crop; the miracle of a fissured oil burner--and there is an affidavit in the book from the oil burner repair man to validate that miracle.

  The Alice Starr miracle is an eye-blinker. While not substantiated, Jesus did teach that “there is nothing impossible to God,” and a few years before his demise Einstein pronounced, “Energy follows thought.” What is prayer? Or thought? Did not the Master teach “as ye believe, so it is done unto you”? Jed interprets this quotation as well.

  The Farm Summer Home only lasts a few years. John is promoted to a bigger assignment in his business career. As a sales manager he becomes, in the words of his business manager, an “ambassador of good will,” living the teachings in the daily contact with his customers and the sales representatives under his responsibility.

  A reader receives from any book as much understanding as he can bring to it, although there is sometimes a lag between experience, vicarious or first-hand, and wisdom. Some may read Rural Harmony and see but the mundane difficulties a couple experiences en route to a goal. Others will perceive a spiritual evolution of the characters and be inspired to espouse some of the principles their lives embody—those expressed and those implied.

  --E. Loyal