EXPERIMENTAL PROVING OF THE SOUND THAT CORRESPONDS 
TO THE ELEMENT NATRIUM OF THE PERIODIC TABLE

George Loukas, Dora Psaltopoulou1
Some general points on Music Therapy.
"Music is an accurate miniature of the laws of nature ... If we study ourselves we will discover that the heart beat, the process of inhalation and exhalation are all expressions of rhythm. Our life depends on this rhythmical movement that takes place within our body. Breathing is expressed as voice, as words, as sound within us. This is music. It seems that there is music outside and inside us".
I. Khan -1988-"Music"
Music Therapy is at the same time an art, a science and an interpersonal process.
As an art it is concerned with subjectivity, individuality, creativity and beauty.
As a science it is concerned with objectivity, collective action, reproduction and truth.
As an interpersonal process it is concerned with empathy, inwardness, communication, mutual influence and role relationships.
The fact that it has to do with the application of art and science in an interpersonal process, requires the integration and connection of many seemingly contradictory elements. Music Therapy can me bothe objective and subjective, individual and collective, creative, reproductive and interpersonal.
As an art, Music Therapy is organised by science and focuses on the interpersonal process. As a science, it receives the breath of life from art and it is humanized in the therapist-client relationship. As an interpersonal process it is facilitated by art and guided by science.
There are a lot of definitions of Music Therapy because of its complex composition. The most commonly used definition in the USA is the following:
"Music Therapy is the use of music in the attainment of therapeutic goals: the restoration, preservation and improvement of the mental, emotional and physical health". 
National Association for Music Therapy 
Kenneth E. Bruscia, 1989. "Defining Music Therapy".
Music Therapy can be individual or group therapy, active or receptive.
In this lecture we will look at an experiment which focuses on the receptive form of Music Therapy in a group. 
The philosophies the experiment is based upon are the following:
"Music can be everything for everyone. It is like a big dynamic sun in the centre of a solar system, that sends its rays and inspiration in all directions ... Music makes us feel that the heavens open up and a divine voice calls us. Something in our soul responds and understands".
Leopold Stokowski
Music can heal body, spirit and soul.
Dr. Stone says:
"Life is a song. It has its own rhythms and its own harmony. It is a symphony of everything in major and minor scales of polarity. It unites all discord, all opposition in a harmony in which the whole unites in a great symphony of life. To learn through our experience in this life, to appreciate the symphony and the lessons of life and to unite with the whole is the purpose of our life".
Dr. Stone believed that healing is something more than the removal of symptoms. Healing, he said, is based on the co-ordination of the deepest truth with man's way of life, a way of life that expresses this truth. It is the role of the therapist to facilitate the client by encouraging this process of harmonization. (Sillsf. 1989, The polarity proc.).
The human body is an ever changing vibrating energy, the "life energy". Our body is a resonating form of kinetic energy.
Music is the synthesis of pulsation, wave and form.
Dr. Stone associates the pulsation with the human ultrasonic core, the centre from where all the energy flows from within and out towards the periphery of the physical and aetheric body -it is part of the electromagnetic flow of the energy. The wave and the form are created by a pulsating vibration. It is, therefore, the pulsating vibration that creates wave, form and the three dimensional being.
Dr. Guy Manners often says:
"... shape and form in a holistic and unique way owe their shape and form to sound" (Manners 1986).
In one of his lectures Manners presented a sound-form by placing Lycopodium powder on a metal plate with a crystal sound vibrator attached to the base of the plate.
The vibrator creates a pulsating wave, which vibrates the plate and creates wave and form. Although the form looks like it is a fixed immobile shape, in reality it is in continuous movement.
Therefore, if sound can create shape and can begin to reproduce forms of the human body, then sound can give form to the human body.
Dr. Jenny says that every part of the human body has its own sound and can, therefore, be influenced by sound. Our world, our body, our thoughts, our feelings and emotions can be influenced and shaped by sound. Sound, music offers the possibility for re-directing the energy flow, as well as the possibilities for the inner structuring of man and changes in the external expression of his internal structuring.
Sound is an excitation which causes symptoms in the people taking part in experiments with sound. When we started the experiments with sounds we thought that the sound would provoke various sensations in the body, various feelings and some mental pictures. At the time of the experiments with sound, however, we observed bodily as well as general symptoms, such as a change in the menses or a change in the diet preference.
The sum total of the effects on the people participating in the experiment is called sound proving. The sound proving has got a special personality, just like the proving. The sound proving has got a special personality, just like the proving of every pharmaceutical substance. The therapeutic usefulness of sound is based on the "law of similars". The mood of the patient has to be similar to the mood the sound provokes in the people participating in the experiment. With this application the expression is mobilized and the patient's psychological state changes.
A. Description of sound proving
Meeting of a maximum of twelve people for at least an hour each time, for a fortnight, in a sound proof room with the necessary equipment for the proving: Hi-Fi stereo, musical instruments, drawing materials, carpet, adjustable lighting, normal room temperature.
The proving consists of four parts:
First part: Group experience.
a. The session begins with a five minute period of self relaxation, which is accompanied by special music to encourage relaxaton and concentration.
b. Immediately afterwards and with no interruption, while the group is in a state of relaxation and concentration, they listen to the specific sound for three to five minutes.
c. The return of the group to the external environment follows, always in the same place, without music and only with oral instructions.
Second part: Processing of the experience in the place of proving.
a. Every member of the group draws his or her experience. They express with colour and form the feelings, the sensations, the pictures or the emotions they may have had whilst listening to the sound.
b. The verbal expression of the experience of every individual follows, which is also recorded with their permission. 
Special importance is given to the description of the experience of the sound by every member, as well as how each individual related emotionally to this experience.
Third part: Processing of the experience outside the place of the proving.
The members of the group are asked to observe carefully and record:
a. Their night dreams.
b. Changes in their mood.
c. Changes in their body.
Fourth part: Completion of the sound experience.
a. After fifteen days discussion of the proving and possible suggestions for the element that corresponds to the sound.
b. Therapeutic interventions by the group supervisors.
The aims of the experiment are the following:
a. To associate the sounds with the elements of the periodic table.
b. The clinical application of the sounds based upon the law of similars, whereby instead of a remedy or at the same time with a remedy, a sound will be prescribed, according to the personality of the individual.
c. To enrich the study of the homeopathic materia medica with new elements, which will derive from the sound provings.

EXPERIMENTAL PROVING OF THE SOUND A, 
THIRD OCTAVE BEFORE THE MEDIUM C
The proving of the sound produced the following impressions in the people participating in the experiment:
S.: It did not make me feel good at the beginning. I mean to start off with it affected my head and then it moved down, like a tightening in my heart. It made me feel lonely with an expectation of something bad ... Like anxiety. I did not know if something was going to happen. I had a feeling of expectation and loneliness ... There was nothing beside me ... A wall ... And there was no way out ...
D.: With me too, it started from my head and towards the end it moved down to my throat ... The sensation I had was that of a wheel, a dead-end, like a cogwheel ... You are trying to get out from somewhere and there is no way out ... Towards the end I saw a container ... There was someone who was digging and getting things out ... I had the need for something to come out ... It was a deep sound ... Then it went down to my stomach ... Also at the beginning I saw a snake that was eating its tail ...
N.: What I saw was very complicated ... There was an enclosed place, but some people were chasing me ... I felt that something wanted to hurt me, to harm me ... The people had guns and they were trying to aim them at me ... I was running and getting breathless ... Something was pushing me to run forward ... I mean like a chase in a police film ... At the beginning I had the same feeling as D. I had a pain on my head as if there was something on it ... And then I was in an enclosed place, something like a mine ... I felt the need to express my emotions ... Then I saw someone in a room next door and he was doing something ... I don't know if it was in relation to the wall that was seperating us or if it was some other wall but I felt that there was someone else who was trying to get in somewhere ... into something closed, but at another level. I don't know if he wanted to come to me or to go somewhere else ... Also at some point I saw something completely irrelevant ... I saw a big commercial fridge, like the ones you open the door to and you go inside like in a big room ... This fridge was closed and I was looking straight at the door ...
M.: At the beginning I felt it in my stomach ... I saw some animals which at the beginning were fighting, but then they started running towards me and I got even more scared. There wasn't anybody around to help me. At some point I hid somewhere and they didn't find me again ... At the beginning some snakes were fighting and then some dogs were chasing me; only dogs, nothing else. Then I felt lost ... (Some time in the past after I had finished with a dance lesson, I was on my way home and I came across a dog which didn't seem to be O.K. Without me having done anything the dog started biting me and this went on for a quarter of an hour. I was trying to keep calm because I knew that if I got angry it would go wild. Luckily some men turned up and as soon as I got near them the dog went away).
V.: I was going to a cemetery for a funeral ... There was sadness ... When I heard the sound, at the beginning I thought of a monastery ... I thought of bells ringing like on Mount Athos ... I thought of it as a Hindu monastery and then I saw the funeral ... I felt my head was being tight as if there was a weight ... I also had a burning feeling all over my head ...
K.: I was in a huge semi-dark metal-works factory ... Then I heard a horn ... At the beginning I felt that it was coming form a ship; as if this sound was going through the metal-works factory. Then as the experiment continued I felt quite relieved. I felt I was relaxing in my throat, where I am usually tight when I am stressed. That is why I smoke a lot and sometimes I sleep for a bit longer in order to get rid of it ... The sound helped me and I relaxed. I somehow feel that I really enjoyed it a lot.
H.: I felt that the sound was coming from the floor upwards and it made my head feel heavy ... The other thing I thought of was sounds from church bells, but no other picture came to me ... I felt tense and I think that I started breathing faster ... I was feeling there was danger ... I also felt I had a weight on my head ...
L.: I felt my heart and diaphragm went tight, and they are still tight ... At the beginning, I saw a church at the top of a mountain; the bells were ringing ... I felt there was an aeroplane flying, but I could not see it ... I could see a dark tunnel, a dead-end. A man was running through this tunnel. While the church bell was ringing I felt that with every beat the people chasing him came closer to him ... He kept running and looking back all the time ... A feeling of death kept coming into my mind. They were chasing this man in order to kill him; they were chasing him in order to hang him. He kept running to get away until he reached a point where he ran so fast that he tuned in with things. He tuned in with the tunnel, with the place that was probably above it, with the road and the cars that were probably going over the tunnel. Amazing running. At some point I felt I really wanted this man to get away. I tried to make him get away with my imagination ... The picture of the dead-end was permanently present ... I was feeling very bad ... After a while I wanted it to finish ... The colours were grey and black ...
After the experiment the following dreams were recorded within the next few days:
D.: We were in some other part of Greece, in a village. There was a small hotel there. We were staying in two appartments. There was a young guitarist there who had died and we went to see his grave. His grave was small and simple, like the grave of a small child, and there were flowers and grass on it. A bit further up from the child's grave there was a big marble grave and I read the name on it, "Anna Ps.", who is my aunt, my father's sister ... I was wondering when she had died and I'd heard nothing about it and my father explained to me that she had died while she was away on a trip ... He also told me that this was our family grave ... Then we put the guitarist in our family grave ... I got really mixed up ... (I have a strange relationship with this aunt of mine ... We are distant from each other. I don't want to have any relationship with her because she is suspicious and she twists everything I say to her ... I mean I was glad that she had died because she wouldn't interfere with my life any more ...).
K.: Although my experience here was pleasant, the dream wasn't pleasant. I have seen similar dreams to this one at times in the past. Suddenly I am in a school classroom being as old as I am now. I don't see any faces. It's just a small Primary school classroom. There is a little girl there who accuses me of raping her ... A small girl who says that it was me and she is shouting ... But I hadn't done anything wrong and I was feeling upset ... Then I am walking in the countryside and it seems that there's been a landslide because of heavy rain ... The soil has started sliding and I see the same little girl hanging, ready to fall ... I lift her up, pulling her by the hand. She gets up and she is saved. She starts running away form me again ... I am very scared ...
V.: I had a dream that I can't remember very well ... It had to do with a big, black, poisonous spider, whose legs were cut off and who wanted to bite us.
N.: I had dreams that had to do with buses ... I am in buses with the people I knew in Corfu, when I was a conductor. I am also with other people I don't know, in places I don't know ... We are talking about places that have nothing to do with Corfu. Every day I have a dream about being in a red bus, not a blue one like the Corfu ones, in unknown places and something is happening ... In the last dream I had and I remember this one, there weren't any machines to cancel the tickets. I had put the money in the box instead, without getting a ticket ... The ticket inspector comes in and he wouldn't believe that I had put the money in the box and I was trying to convince him that I had paid ... In this dream all the people I saw were unknown ...
From the above we can reach the following conclusions about the state of this sound:
1. There is a difficulty in expressing feelings. The individual is introverted. He builds a wall around him.
2. The individual is caught in his past. He is constantly thinking about the events of the past.
3. A sense that he is being condemned.
4. A sense that he is alone and isolated. 
5. Hatred for people he does not like.
6. A sense that he is being chased.
7. Anxiety as if something is going to happen.
8. Grief.
Thus, we think that the element of the periodic table that corresponds to this sound is Natrium.
Introversion and difficulty in expressing feelings is one of the basic characteristics of Natrum muriaticum, which is the best proved salt of Natrium. R. Sankaran mentions the following poem:
"Salt,
You move the sea
The deep blue sea
And the sea within me.

Without you 
The flow ceases 
So much somewhere
So little somewhere else.

The psychism
stops flowing, it stagnates.
It moves up and down 
And then it comes back ..."
The most typical unexpressed feeling is grief. R. Sankaran says in the same book: "Another characteristic of Natrum muriaticum is quiet grief. He is sad but he cannot cry. Suppressed grief, he cannot cry ..."
Sandra Chase states: "The woman that needs Natrum muriaticum has been melancholic for a long time. She tries to suppress this melancholy as well as all her other feelings. She may feel guilty about her melancholy. She tends to be a person who keeps her feelings within herself. She will say that she is well, although she is not. Sometimes she will say that there is nothing wrong ..."
Hering writes: "He tries to bring to mind unpleasant events of the past in order to remember them and surrender to the grief they cause him ..."
R. Sankaran considers the combination of gloom and the remembrance of unpleasant events as a characteristic combination of Natrum muriaticum.
R. Sankaran writes: "The psychism of Natrum muriaticum is governed by resentment. The symptoms that follow give us the very useful characteristic that they hate people because people displease them. (Aur., Magn., Nitr. acid, Sulph.).
Whitmont writes: "Natrum muriaticum feels alone and isolated. The patient strongly desires love and compassion, but as it happens an inner command prohibits their acceptance. The silent voice of his ego urges him to find the source of strength within himself ..." 
1 Dora Psaltopoulou, music therapist, MA, CMT.