The Church of Cymatics

To begin with:

Religions suck.

They're the literal worst. The world over, despite their divine origins, the major religions have become little more than socially-accepted cults that infantilize the masses, demonize whole groups of other humans and use a self-serving concept of God to justify endless wars for profit and power.

As a result, the word church carries a lot of baggage, doesn't it?

"The Church" (pick any of the big ones) is demonstrably responsible for unforgivable scandals involving such deviousness as sexual predation, social oppression, immoral financial chicanery and political corruption.

To be clear:

This is not that.

Though there are definitely redeeming qualities within every faith tradition, the generally nightmarish history has turned many people (myself included) off or away from the very idea of a church.

Why would anyone want to devote their life or entrust their spiritual development to hypocritical people and organizations that would engage in such obviously evil endeavors?

That being the case, you may ask: why is this a church?

Let me explain.

Why a Church?

Despite the present-day toxicity of most major organized religions, I refuse to throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater.

A strong connection to spirit and soul remains a vital source of inspiring guidance and basic goodness for the majority of humanity. 

A Pew Research study based on data from 2010 reveals that 84% of the global population identifies as "religiously affiliated." In addition, "many of the unaffiliated hold some religious or spiritual beliefs... even though they do not identify with a particular faith." 

This Harvard Medical School study shows how spirituality can lead to better health outcomes.

Personally, I was raised in a religiously neutral environment, in which attending Church was primarily a way of connecting with our neighbors. I asked a lot of questions though, and was always encouraged to find my own answers.

In middle school, I asked and was often allowed to attend services at Temple Israel with the family of my best friend. In college, I studied Buddhism, yoga and attended Bible study. To this day, a lifetime of existential anxiety compels me to seek ever-deeper answers about who I am, why I'm here and what it all means.

This seeking is what ultimately led me to Āyurveda, Vedic Astrology, and a Master's degree in Metaphysics. Part of this degree included ordination as a Minister in the Wisdom of the Heart Church.

In the gradual process of recognizing and accepting my calling as a professional human development guide, I was always confronted with the conundrum of how to design an authentic, economically ethical and regenerative delivery system for these gifts. A series of serendipities led me to the conclusion that a Church is the best way to organize the information, activities and fellow seekers to whom my life is devoted.

And so, here we are.

To be an ordained, non-denominational Minister in the Church of Cymatics is a personal, political, economic and spiritual choice. Here are a few reasons why I've chosen this path:

• First and foremost, as an innately gentle, generous human born into a world dominated by late-stage, extractive, colonialist capitalism, I have always struggled to relate to business and money in a healthy way. Have you ever felt the same? As an unincorporated 508(c)1a faith-based organization, the Church of Cymatics is as removed from the realm of economics as possible, requiring the absolute minimum level of interaction with a demonstrably corrupt financial system that manufactures scarcity and depends for its survival upon widespread debt-slavery. Distance from this system allows us to stay focused on our spiritual mission to share illuminating, liberatory information and activities with as many people as possible.
• Then, here are two somewhat-selfish-perhaps but nonetheless-super-important factors:
  • As a well-qualified but unlicensed practitioner, the umbrella structure of a Church with an auxiliary Private Membership Association provides significant legal protections for all involved by invoking our First Amendment right to freedom of religion, speech and assembly.
  • The Constitutionally-enshrined separation of Church and State also bestows bountiful tax benefits. I am not inherently opposed to taxation because I truly appreciate and enjoy civilization (roads, firefighters and public education, for example). However, if the financial fruits of this healing work are going to serve a globe-spanning military empire that overthrows, undermines, surveils and rains bombs on innocent humans, I do not consent. The Church of Cymatics is committed to using the resources it stewards in service of a more just and peaceful world.
• Finally, the modern biomedical paradigm (including mental health) offers many miraculous solutions, and in recent years is leaning more and more towards the power of consciousness in any healing process. However, there is much progress to be made towards incorporating a truly holistic view of human nature in the pursuit of health and happiness. The Church of Cymatics offers helping professionals of all walks the opportunity to integrate an explicitly spiritual approach into their professional practice. To this end, the Church offers a year-long Cymatic Ministry Program, about which you can learn more here.

In summary, I believe that the overlapping crises we are facing — personally, relationally and collectively — are the symptomatic outgrowth of a fundamentally spiritual problem. Humanity is in transition from one paradigm to the next; the poles are shifting and what was the North Star is True North no longer.

At this vital moment in history, there is an upswell of humans ready to release themselves from oppressive old power structures and take full responsibility for their own soul mission. That's what I am here to do, and that is why the Church of Cymatics exists — to empower people with the knowledge and skills necessary to spontaneously Self-organize into an interdependent system more harmonic than this planet has ever known.

That's the gist of it. For more specifics about operations and agreements, I refer you to The Fine Print.

For now, I wonder:

Does any of that make sense to you?

Why? Or why not? Let me know!

Why Cymatics?

Every spiritual tradition throughout all of human history has emphasized the power and importance of sound vibration. The earliest extant written text, the Rig Veda, is essentially a book of hymns and chants. The famous opening words of the Torah or Old Testament are: “In the beginning, there was the Word, and the word was God.” The practice of Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and beyond all center around song. Even our modern word for the vastness of creation, the universe, means “one song (or poem).”

The Church of Cymatics orients its metaphysical belief structure around the concrete science of cymatics – the study of how sound and vibration create, maintain and transform the seemingly solid matter that forms the perceivable world. Combining ancient understandings with modern, Nobel Prize-winning science, the Church of Cymatics endeavors to inspire human creativity and connection through accurate comprehension of the all-pervasive pattern language that composes our cosmos, from micro to macro.

Church Doctrine 

Fundamentally, there are Five Laws of Inner Physics that describe the simple math and science which informs the faith and practice of the Church.

These Five Laws are summarized below.

If you'd like to go deeper, check out the Inner Physics Starter Kit, which includes the Multi Dimensional Essentials course.

The Five Laws of Inner Physics

LAW #1: Space has Shape

According to ancient Vedic tradition and Nobel Prize-winning astrophysics, space is not an empty vacuum but in fact packed densely full of gravitational wave background or ether. Space is not the emptiness that separates us; ether is the subtle substance that connects us in the primordial ocean of beingness.

It has been rigorously demonstrated that the ether behaves similarly to an ocean — a vast array of waves overlapping, amplifying and negating one another in an interactive dance of infinite complexity.

This aligns with the assertion of Sankhya philosophy that the ether element is associated with / not different from sound waves. This brings us to the science of cymatics.

The word cymatics comes from the Greek ‘kyma,’ meaning billow or wave. The word was coined by the originator of cymatic science, Dr. Hans Jenny (pronounced Yenny). Jenny is a Swiss-born physician who performed a variety of experiments in the 1960’s, leading to the publication of two volumes of work called “Cymatics: The Study of Wave Phenomena” as well as a documentary called “Cymatics - Bringing Matter to Life with Sound” (video below). 

Jenny elaborated on the work of Ernst Chladni, a German physicist and musician born in 1756. He invented the Chladni Plate, a rigid surface which, when covered with sand and vibrated by a violin bow, shows how matter spontaneously self-organizes into predictable geometric shapes when exposed to harmonic vibratory frequencies.

When the frequency is incoherent, the sand just bobbles chaotically on the surface of the plate. However, when the frequency is harmonic (think, Middle C on a piano), the sand spontaneously self-organizes into predictable geometric patterns. If you turn the frequency dial up (towards C# or D, for example), there is a period of discombobulation but, as you reach the harmonic node, the sand will organize into a new geometric configuration. As the frequency increases, the shapes tend to become more complex. When you reach the octave (the next C note up the scale), the same shape appears but literally in a higher frequency – more of the same shapes packed into the same surface area.

The best way to understand cymatics is to see it for yourself. Here is the first part of Jenny’s documentary, in which he vibrates a variety of media and demonstrates the dynamic capacity of sound to animate matter.

“Everything owes its existence solely and completely to sound. Sound is the factor which holds it together. Sound is the basis of form and shape.”

As you can see from the video above, sound vibration is capable of creating all forms, from archetypal geometric structures to geological processes to living organisms.

Among much else, the science of cymatics gives valuable insight into the power of mantra. To repeat certain syllables in a consistent cadence creates a stable vibrational field which has the capacity to restructure all the liquid in your brain and body, reshape every cell in your body and transmit coherent frequencies that contribute to the overall harmony of your surroundings.

If the etheric field that composes space is indeed vibrating, we ought to see specific geometrical structures encoded throughout creation. And we do, at every scale. 

For more examples of cymatics and gravitational waves, here is a YouTube playlist.

For more examples of how archetypal geometry is encoded throughout reality at every scale, see Law #4.

LAW #2: Thoughts are Electric; Emotions are Magnetic

Law #2 asserts the psychological significance of a universal organizing structure known as the toroidal field.

Toroids organize matter at every scale of creation, from galaxies to atoms. Convection currents move hot water in a toroidal pattern, the same way magma moves within the Earth's mantle. Earth itself has a toroidal field shown by the Van Allen Belts. The truth is, toroidal fields are everywhere, from red blood cells to tornadoes to Earth's atmosphere to galactic structures.

A torus is a self-recursive bubble defined by perpendicular electric and magnetic forces.

The central column of a toroidal field is a helical spiral stretched between a magnetic North and South. Like a fountain, when energy reaches the top, it curls back down until sucked up through the center again.

Since magnetic and electric fields always co-arise at perpendicular angles, we see an electrical current radiating out on the horizontal plane, perpendicular to the magnetic vertical column.

This explains why galaxies appear to spread out in a disc — all the visible light particles (heat, electricity) are distributed on the horizontal plane, while the magnetic field (invisible to the naked eye) provides the spinning, vertical column (center of gravity) around which the light orbits.

As a matter of principle, toroids arise in pairs — an inner and an outer bubble. The energy in these bubbles flows in counterbalancing directions — one up, one down; one clockwise, one counter; one expanding while the other contracts. These paired opposites give the toroid its self-contained stability.

The Heartmath Institute has demonstrated that the human heart generates a toroidal field that surrounds our bodies. The many layers of this field can be understood as roughly equivalent to the auric field or subtle body described by many spiritual traditions.

On a psycho-spiritual level, it is from my teacher Jim Self that I borrow the phrase "thoughts are electric; emotions are magnetic." According to the toroidal structure, this means that thoughts are the more visible, tangible aspect of mind that radiates out from us, while emotions are the invisible, gravitational force that forms the central column of our being.

This is an important concept for anyone working with conscious manifestation practices, recognizing that it is the feeling that magnetizes your desires, whereas just thinking about it has far less attractive power.

There is much more to say (and practice) about this, but for now, I would invite you to meditate on your toroidal field and play with the idea that thoughts are electric, emotions magnetic.

For specific techniques to manage and harmonize your own toroidal field, check out the course in Somatic Imagination Training — a 21-day process that shows you how to expand, contract, ground, uplift, protect and create using simple, instantaneously impactful daily practices.

LAW #3: Light Changes as Time Moves Through Space

In order to interact skillfully with perceivable reality, we are wise to investigate the fundamental elements of which that reality is composed.

Here is the most concise summary of reality I can conjure:

Life is how it feels for you when light changes as time moves through space.

Space is the prerequisite for creation, the container within which everything becomes possible, the ocean in which creation swims.

Time is measured by changes in heat and light — the Sun rises and sets every day, the Moon waxes and wanes every month, the flow of seasons define a year, the changing position of shining stars and planets show an infinitude of micro and macro cycles of time.

How that light changes depends on your unique point of reference. At any given moment it may be day or night, depending on your precise location on the planet. As physicist Carlo Rovelli explains in his book The Order of Time, it is actually impossible to speak of time independent of place.

Perceiving the world around you through your eyes, all the movement you see is merely light particles bouncing off of other beings being reflected into your corneas and interpreted by your mind. Changes in light define our moment-to-moment awareness of what is happening around us.

Interpretation of these events (changes in light) from our unique, individual perspective inevitably gives rise to feelings — pleasant, neutral or otherwise. These internal responses to external phenomena define the quality of our lived experience. Many people may experience the same event but have wildly different interpretations and therefore a wide spectrum of emotional responses.

Put it all together, and this is why I say:

Life is how it feels for you when light changes as time moves through space.

LAW #4: Systems are Synergetic at every scale

Buckminster Fuller (one of the sages in the CoC pantheon) defines a system as "anything that has insideness and outsideness." A simple example is a cube, which has a distinct inside and outside; you are either in the cube, or out.

Of course, boundaries change all the time depending on the scope of perspective. A human body is one, whole coherent system, but zoom in and you'll see that the heart is also a self-contained system, whole unto itself — a whole part of a larger whole. Zoom way out and you see the Earth as one whole system, a whole part of our solar system, itself a whole part of the Milky Way galaxy, and so on and so on, ad infinitum.

Fuller's genius, as expressed in his magnum opus "Synergetics: Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking" is "to identify structural similarities among phenomena — both physical and metaphysical." Synergetics provides a decoder key for understanding how systems function according to the same principles at every scale of creation — material, psycho-emotional and subtle.

Here, let's touch on a few key examples:

Cosmic Geometry 

In 1596, Johannes Kepler published Mysterium Cosmographicum in which he provides mathematical evidence that the relative orbits of the planets can be defined by nested Platonic Solids.

Here is a clearer description from Wikipedia:

“[Kepler] found that each of the five Platonic solids could be inscribed and circumscribed by spherical orbs; nesting these solids, each encased in a sphere, within one another would produce six layers, corresponding to the six known planets—Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. By ordering the solids selectively—octahedron, icosahedron, dodecahedron, tetrahedron, cube—Kepler found that the spheres could be placed at intervals corresponding to the relative sizes of each planet's path…”

Keeping in mind Law #1 about cymatics and the shape of space, it is only sensible that the grand sand particles we call planets would spontaneously self-organize into harmonic geometric relationships. Here are a few images that help to visualize the geometry that defines the solar system.

This is how astrology works. As the ether vibrates, it creates geometric relationships that stretch, warp and weft. Structure determines function. As the geometrical structures shift (when light changes as time moves through space), so do the energetic signatures impacting Earth. Astrology is the study of how these geometrical alignments (and misalignments) impact the human experience; how the changes in light above influence changes in light here below.

Biotensegrity

Tensegrity is a portmanteau of the words tension and integrity. It is the natural expression of Synergetics in action. 

It began as an innovative approach to architecture (see: geodesic domes), but has since found a wide variety of applications, including “biotensegrity” which models human anatomy and physiology with astonishing accuracy.

The primary principle of tensegrity is simply stated: “Islands of compression floating in a sea of tension.”

In the human body, bones are compressive elements floating in a "a single tensioned network" or web of fascia.

The orthopedic surgeon Stephen Levin — author of the seminal article “Biotensegrity: The Architecture of Life” — shows how “classical mechanics and isolated lever systems are simply not good enough to explain the complexity of biological motion”

Graham Scarr, author of the book "Biotensegrity" writes: “If the behavior of living organisms were to follow the laws of classical mechanics, then lifting a heavy weight would cause muscles to tear, discs to rupture, vertebrae to be crushed and blood vessels to burst...One of the features of the tensegrity model is that the compression is discontinuous, i.e. it is not transferred directly between the struts (bones).” (Scarr, 35)

Scarr explains how “examination of the knee and other joints has shown that there is little or no compression between normal joint surfaces in vivo even when they are pushed together.” (Scarr, 63)

Biotensegrity succeeds where classical mechanics fails in explaining why an ant can carry 10-50x its own body weight, or how dinosaurs were able to be so large (think of Brontasaurus' neck!) despite inherent limits on bone density.

Like cosmic geometry, Tensegrity and Biotensegrity are based on the archetypal geometry of Platonic Solids, especially the tetrahedron. This is because, as Fuller says: "Nature has one universal coordinating system."

To nerd out about this even more, check out the Multi Dimensional Essentials section of the (free) Starter Kit.

LAW #5: Survival of the Kindest

The Church of Cymatics is rooted in the believe that Darwinian evolution is not a competition for the survival of the fittest, but rather a collaborative, symbiotic process whereby the beings who are best able to give what they can and receive what they need in harmony with their environment are the most likely to live on and on.

There is ample evidence of this in the natural world. For example, forest ecosystems where the mother tree distributes nutrients to the surrounding trees according to need and viability (see: Finding the Mother Tree). This distribution of resources is facilitated by interwoven root systems and the mycelial network which serves as the nervous system of the forest, transporting valuable information to all inhabitants be they flora or fauna.

Other examples include:

• Pollination of flowers by bees, a root source of basically all the food on Earth;
• Sharks (some of the oldest animals on Earth) and suckerfish, protecting, feeding and cleaning one another;
• Coral providing protection and CO2 for algae which performs photosynthesis to create sugars and 02 to support the coral's growth and reproduction;
• Bacteria finding a relatively stable environment in the human gut and reciprocating by helping us digest complex enzymes and absorb otherwise unavailable nutrients which in turn has accelerated our brain development and growth as a species 

Click here for more examples from the National Library of Medicine.

The common, modern (mis)understanding of evolution as rooted in cut-throat competition justifies the pursuit of infinite growth for its own sake. This is the ideology of a cancer cell.

Through a loss of cellular intelligence, the cancer cell forgets that it is a vital part of a larger whole. Perceiving itself to be alone in a chaotic environment, the cell believes it must be completely self-dependent and so starts hoarding resources to fuel its growth and resilience.

This hoarding makes it grow, yes, but in doing so it depletes the environment which provides the resources it hoards. This is a self-defeating, suicidal cycle which starts with the perception of isolation.

Is this not a potent metaphor for modern industrial, militaristic, extractive, colonial capitalism? This globe-dominating socio-economic system insists on radical individualism, valorizes growth for its own sake and worships the ones who are best at hoarding.

When one perceives the living ecosystem in which one is intimately embedded as a mere stockpile of resources waiting to be harvested (and quick, before someone else does it!), one has adopted the mindset of a cancer cell.

We are experiencing the devastating consequences of this as a planetary community as we speak — ecosystems are collapsing, extreme weather increasing and vast populations suffering from hunger, homelessness and war.

This is all so unnecessary in an inherently collaborative, intimately interconnected cosmos, on a planet naturally abundant with plenty for everybody if only we would remember that we are a part of the whole and play our appropriate role.

For data-based evidence that there is indeed plenty for everyone, check out this report proving we could provide a good modern life (cell phone, car, dishwasher, etc.) for every person on the planet using 30% of our current production capacity.

We do not have a population problem; we have a resource distribution problem. We as a species need to re-orient our entire paradigm to embrace the nurturing, collaborative care-giving ethos embodied by the Mother Tree. This is the only way forward "if we will have the wisdom to survive."

The Church of Cymatics encourages the use of Non-Violent Communication to navigate conflict, and advocates for the Internal Family Systems approach — recognizing all parts as well-meaning contributors to the health of the whole — to be applied in service of personal, social and geopolitical peace, freedom and prosperity.

Ultimately,

the Church of Cymatics exists

to empower people

with the knowledge that

we are intimately interwoven

within the web of all beings,

and to facilitate the cultivation

of the skills necessary 

to spontaneously Self-organize

into an interdependent system

more harmonic than this

planet has ever known.

Thanks for reading all the way to the bottom of the page!

For more about the practical agreements and economic policies that govern the Church of Cymatics and its auxiliary private membership association, The Inner Physics Forum, please read The Fine Print.