The Law of Resonance
For the budding light-worker or spiritual explorer, the principle of resonance is a pertinent and useful concept. It is interwoven within many New Age ideas and perhaps more importantly is at the heart of the sacred sciences known to the ancients, extending back to Egypt and beyond to the pre-historic, now mythic, culture of Atlantis. [Its legacy: pyramids, astronomical temples and standing stones]
You may have come across this principle in phrases like “good vibes” versus “bad vibes” and “high or low frequency”, and most of us get the gist of meaning in the broadest sense - we instinctively understand that high frequency is preferable to low frequency, and we want to avoid bad vibes. In this post I'm not going to jump into complex technical ideas about resonance, but aim to help those new to the idea understand why resonance matters, and how it can be used as a navigation tool for healing journeys and the awakening process.
The Third Hermetic Principle
Gnostic Hermeticism most probably has its roots in Atlantean prediluvial knowledge, and a key text called the Corpus Hermeticum (attributed to a character called Hermes Trismegistus, who appears in Thoth’s Prophecy on Egypt) outlines 7 primary tenets relating to cosmic laws governing reality. The text is believed to have been written around 200-400CE, but I suspect the knowledge is much older than this. Concepts from the Corpus Hermeticum reappeared in a book called the Kybalion published in 1908 with more modern language.
Tenet 3: The Principle of Vibration
"Nothing rests; everything moves; everything vibrates." ~ The Kybalion
Everything is in a state of flux; nothing exists in a state of complete rest; everything moves or vibrates at the most fundamental level. That which we perceive within existence is vibratory energy manifesting itself in different ways. Nothing is solid as such; matter is energy in a state of vibration.
To vibrate is to oscillate; to move in a specific rhythm, and the speed of this movement has a frequency, which can be observed and measured. This movement can also be represented as a wave on a graph.
In Pop-Culture New Age thought, the tendency is to think in polarised terms where:
low-frequency = bad
and
high-frequency = good
This is a beginners-level approach, useful at times, but it isn’t strictly speaking true; we need only look at brain wave frequencies to see that low frequencies are not always reflective of undesirable states of being.
The Schumann Resonance is essential to health and wellbeing and is a low frequency wave
This short animation shows the Schumann Resonance excited by lightning discharges in the atmosphere. Many energy healers attune to the Schumann frequency when they work.
We Are Vibrational Beings
If reality is generated by vibrating patterns of energy, then we are vibrational beings; we are immersed in an ocean of energy fields, most of which we are unaware of. This ocean of energy patterns we can call ‘The Field of Potentiality’ and in the Kabbalistic Tree of Life model, is associated with the 3rd emanation of Binah - The Divine Feminine, and in Tarot is directly linked to Key 3 of the major arcana - The Empress.
Binah is often described as the primordial darkness out of which all things emerge; she is nothing, which is to say she is not one thing, but everything. In physics the colour black belongs to substances that absorb all light; black contains all waveforms of visible light, and so the darkness in this metaphor refers to all possibility.
And yet each of us are blissfully unaware of all of this: the human being is designed to be selective; we are tuning out of a vast amount of energetic information in order to experience a finite and personal reality. Enlightenment isn’t the capacity to tune into everything at once, but more about enjoying the freedom to move one’s consciousness across a spectrum of frequencies rather than be stuck in just one.
[note: the Tree of Life from the Jewish mysticism known as Kabbalah describes the principle of involution; essentially the steps of creation unfolding or the lightning bolt of creation in a sequence from 1 - 10, and also the path of spiritual evolution in reverse from 10 back to1. There is cause to think this knowledge stems from ancient Egypt since the words Ka and Ba are Egyptian for the Etheric Double and the Soul respectively]
In science materialism, there is firm belief that the brain is the source of all our thoughts and experiences, but in sacred science (rooted in metaphysics) the brain is viewed as a processor for energy waves; a transducer converting information carried on waveforms into personal experiences in the form of perceptions, thoughts, feelings and emotions, much like a radio converting radio waves into sound; we don’t generate thoughts in the brain, we receive them from Source via the Higher-Self or through benevolent ‘others’ via telepathy (aka spirit guides, the Muses and helpers); we can also receive thought energy from negative entities and the False Matrix. Thoughts and emotions can also form into patterns, especially caused by painful or traumatic events. How many insomniacs can’t sleep because the mind keeps moving in circles? The task for the individual is to become self-mastered enough to be able to choose the quality of thoughts we are willing to receive and experience.
When we think of our personal unique vibration, it is less helpful to think of it as a frequency with a number; we each have a complex vibratory signature much like a fingerprint or DNA sequence. We can imagine this signature like a sound, for example the quality of sound produced by a Bansuri flute is quite different from the sound produced by an acoustic guitar even though both might play the same note.
So rather than simply using a high-frequency/low frequency metric to understand and work with the principle of vibration, it is more useful to think in terms of quality of vibration. Like a piano that has many strings, we a comprised of many elements and levels of being: our physical bodies for example are a complex milieu of trillions of cells all operating individually and collectively at the same time (in a healthy person) and in addition we are in a symbiotic relationship with many more bacteria, fungi, viruses and parasites.
[Its interesting to note that proliferations of so called ‘negative’ organisms such as the fungus Candida albicans, are not technically uninvited intruders; the body allows Candida to grow because it is capable of locking away toxic heavy metals, making it the lesser of two negatives; a trade off against the more pernicious effects of mercury, lead and aluminium poisoning. The same can be said for parasites; in most cases they are employed by the body until no longer needed]
We also enjoy other subtle bodies, which generate energy vibrations through the nature of our feelings, thoughts, and emotions. For this reason, improving our overall frequency of being is much like tuning an instrument, which is to say its about harmonisation. If all the piano strings are out of tune with each other, then the quality of vibration we generate will be chaotic and the quality of life experience will be difficult and on the negative side. The more harmonised we become, the easier it is to elevate our core vibration to higher states of being i.e to enjoy a more joyful and loving life-approach.
The frequency signature of anything is highly complex, whether it be for a person, a tree, or a medicinal herb.
An easy way to appreciate this complexity is through cymatic imagery (the art of making sound and vibration visible)
We can add movement to get a sense of modulation and flux; we are never static but ever changing with a flow of thoughts and emotions...
When we think of frequency it helps to think in terms of the vertical and the horizontal. The vertical axis is spiritual in nature; timeless and infinite, and the notion of raising our overall frequency equates to rising up the central vertical column. The horizontal axis refers to the space-time dimensions, and this correlates to the idea of harmonisation as a means to raising ones vibration.
It is easier to rise up the vertical axis when one has a harmonised energy field; it is very difficult to elevate when one is out of balance.
Having established that our core vibratory signature is a complex waveform, and that everything in our outer experience also has a complex vibratory signature e.g. plants, rocks, animals, as well as inanimate objects such as furniture, buildings, and books (although the degree of complexity varies), lets now consider the law of resonance.
To get a feel for resonance, we can look at some simple sine waves. In the above image, three sine waves represent 3 different frequencies. Sine wave A is a lower frequency than sine waves B & C.
And yet despite their differences, they are all in resonance with each other. For each wave movement of A, there are 2 wave movements for B and 4 wave movements for C.
Another way to express this is:
A & B are in a 2:1 resonance
B & C are also in a 2:1 resonance
A & C are in a 4:1 resonance
If we overlay the sine waves in the image below, we can see that they all converge at the midway point.
In contrast non-resonant frequencies don’t do this. In the image below sine waves D & E are not resonant, and when overlaid in F we can see they don’t converge at the mid point but create dissonance.
In addition when two frequencies meet, as happens in relationships with two people, if they are in resonance with each other, the synergy of their combined energy creates what is called a standing wave. The two resonant frequencies generate a more amplified effect as can be seen in the moving image below. The black sine wave is the standing wave generated by the interaction of the blue and the red sine waves.
This can work both positively and negatively; if someone is operating at a high frequency and they come into relationship with someone in a lower frequency but still in resonance, not only will both parties feel the harmonious nature of their resonance, the person with the lower frequency can also feel uplifted by the standing wave they are co-creating. Equally if a person is in a low frequency state characterised by negativity, if they have the stronger energy, they can bring everyone else down with them, especially if there is resonance present.
This same principle applies to the use of ‘corrective’ frequencies we might employ for health and well-being. Effective healers either generate and channel a high frequency resonant energy wave, which together with another person generates a beneficial standing wave, or use tools or agents such as specific plant medicine or blend of medicines embodying a frequency, which generates a beneficial standing wave within the subtle bodies of an individual, shifting the overall vibration and improving health.
Entrainment
A related concept worth mentioning is the principle of entrainment. This occurs usually when a strong frequency is able to entrain other weaker ones. The best way to see entrainment working is with metronomes. A group of metronomes are placed on a moving platform. All of them are activated randomly, but after a few minutes they become entrained with each other until they all move in unison. Notably the metronomes are all set at the same frequency, and are therefore in natural resonance with each other.
The phenomenon of entrainment is pertinent to group dynamics and is often used to advantage in advertising and social engineering. Repeat something long enough on television and eventually whole communities will become entrained to an idea or pattern of behaviour. In a similar way, peaceful protestors can be manipulated into negative destructive behaviour, if the group is infiltrated by enough low frequency individuals behaving badly.
Perceiving Resonance
We all know how pleasant two complimentary notes on a well tuned piano can sound. We also know that it is less pleasant to hear two notes out of tune with each other. In these examples the principle of resonance is in play. Resonance feels good to us, while dissonance most of the time feels uncomfortable. It is through resonance that we can effectively navigate the frequency arena.
To consciously work with energetic resonance, we need to have clear access to our feelings; resonance is something we feel rather than think. For most of us, in order to become attuned to resonance we will need to overcome social conditioning, often received at school, which blocks our capacity to trust and pay attention to our feeling nature. [It is common for the highly educated to be more out of touch with their feelings than others.]
For the beginner it helps to realise that only over time and through attention and practice will access to feelings improve. This means that at the beginning, the signal can be ‘noisy’, weak and ‘muddy’, and there can be confusion, error and doubt as a result. This is our current normal, because modern education is left-brain dominant and the intuitive feeling-side of our nature is processed by the right brain.
How often do we feel something is wrong in a situation and ignore this type of information in favour of logic and reason, often with unfavourable results?
Anyone interested in spiritual development must necessarily become resonance savvy, because often the direction we need to take in life goes against our preconceived idea of things, and logic & reason on their own often prove insufficient or inefficient modes with which to navigate the unseen dimensions of life.
Resonance plays a key role in relationships, but we need to know the difference between resonance and compulsion. In modernity there is much confusion over this; we rely on perennial stereotypical ideas of love and compatibility e.g. going weak at the knees or constantly thinking about someone as signs we are in love - in my experience these signs are more typical of compulsions arising from the unconscious, which may not always be productive and sometimes are destructive. Movies do little to elevate our understanding, and often mislead us.
Resonant relationships will more often feel balanced, peaceful, gentle and stable; resonance is unlikely to make us feel discomfort or intense destabilisation.
The Law of Attraction