Boost Your Health and Emotions Through the Arts

Kathleen Karlsen
May – June 2023 • Vol 4, No 4

One day in my early twenties, I saw an ad on a bulletin board for a health treatment that involved a combination of sound, crystals, music, and film. I was living in the small town of Los Alamos, New Mexico, high in the mountains. Intrigued by the unusual description, I decided to call and make an appointment. When I arrived, I was ushered into a room where there was a structure made of crystals in a large lattice, forming a pyramid.

I was instructed to lay on the floor under the pyramid and left in the quiet room for about 20 minutes. When the practitioner returned, he led me into another room with a large, comfortable chair. The windows were covered with blackout curtains. The room was completely dark. I could not even see my hand in front of my face! A film began to play on the wall in front of me. A series of large, colorful crystals spun and turned in space while soothing music played.

Although the film was beautiful to watch, I didn’t feel any immediate changes. However, I enjoyed the experience enough to encourage a friend to try the treatment herself. For her, watching the film released a torrent of emotions. Something was definitely going on! Little did I know that many years later I would focus my master’s degree on the history and therapeutic uses of combinations of color and sound.

From the Greeks to Modern Science

The power of art to inspire, comfort, and motivate is widely recognized. The more mysterious impacts of art reveal that there may be more to art than meets the eye. Modern research is proving this idea. In our world of ubiquitous, multimedia stimulation, the power of art and multimedia both to heal and to harm is a fertile field for ongoing research and increasingly practical applications.

From the days of the ancient Greeks through the Middle Ages, and into the Renaissance, both color and music were widely considered to possess inherent moral powers to influence their viewers and listeners for better or for worse. Even in contemporary times, many mystics and followers of occult traditions have insisted that particular colors and types of music, especially synchronized combinations of the two art forms, possess the ability to induce trances, hypnotic states and healing.

The Divine Disease: Synesthesia

The word “synesthesia” is derived from the Greek words “syn,” which means “together,” and “aisthesis,” which means “perception.” Synesthesia refers to individuals who experience involuntary, cross-sensory associations. The most common form of synesthesia is “colored hearing,” or seeing colors when a sound is heard. Interestingly, Pythagoras considered synesthesia to be the greatest philosophical gift and spiritual achievement, a type of divine disease.

Synesthesi