How Singing Has the Power to Heal

This article is one of the Unity Classics written by legendary leaders of Unity. Some date back decades, even a century. That’s why the language may seem a bit formal, and the writers sometimes used masculine nouns and pronouns that were considered proper for their era.

Charles Fillmore draws the connection between the vibrational energy of singing and the universal joy of Spirit

Even without access to the idea that everything is energy, Charles Fillmore somehow knew that everything is constantly in vibration and the flow of energy through our bodies affects our health.

Therefore, he recommended laughter as a healing agent and said singing stirs up joy in every cell.

In this excerpt about the power of singing from The Essential Charles Fillmore, he demonstrates a quaint understanding of medicine but a prescient view of the energy behind healing.

I will sing unto the Lord a new song of harmony and health.

That there is an intimate relation between happiness and health goes without question.

When you feel good you sing either audibly or silently. Singing promotes health because it increases the circulation, and a good circulation is a sign and promoter of health.

If the blood stream were never congested and all the nerves and pores were open and free and were swiftly carrying forward their appointed work, there would never be an abnormal or false growth in the body. It follows logically then that we should cultivate those mind activities which stimulate naturally the currents of life in the body. One of these, and a very important one, is joy.

No one likes to take medicine even when sugar-coated, because there is an instinctive feeling that it will do no good. Besides it usually tastes bad. But nearly anyone can sing a little song, and those who have tried it right in the face of suffering will tell you that it is a marvelous health restorer.

How Singing Links to Healing Vibrational Energy

The reason that singing restores harmony to tense nerves is that its vibrations stir them to action, thus making it possible for the ever-waiting healing Spirit to get in. The organ of the human voice is located right next to the thyroid gland, the accelerator of certain important body functions. To a greater or less degree every word you speak vibrates the cells up and down the body, from front brain to abdomen.

The Spirit of health, or as the doctors call it, the restorative power of nature, is always right at hand awaiting an opportunity to enter in to make whole and to harmonize all discords in the body.

Back of every true song is a thought of joy. It is the thought that counts in the end, because it is the thought that invites the healing Spirit. Consequently, we should sing with the thought that the Lord is right with us and that His joy is giving our words the healing action; as Jesus said, “that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full” (John 15:11). 

It does not make any difference what your previous thoughts have been about your ability to sing, it does not make any difference what you think about it at present, and it does not make any difference whether you can sing or not; cultivate the singing soul and you will some day break forth into a singing voice.

The Spirit Intoxicated by God

When men think a great deal about spiritual things and especially about God as an indwelling spiritual presence, both mind and body are thrilled with joy, a feeling of satisfaction, and a tendency to break out in songs of gladness.

This is not confined to Christians; persons everywhere, in every age, have told of an inner glory and happiness when they got into the habit of concentrating their mind on God. The great philosopher Spinoza wrote so much about God that he was known as the “God-intoxicated man.”

Pythagoras taught that the universe is God’s symphony and that all the suns and planets sing as they swing their way through the heavens. All nature has a language and a song for those who listen.

“And this our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.”

Shakespeare

Shakespeare often quoted from the Bible, and he may have got his idea that trees have tongues from 1 Chronicles 16:33: “Then shall the trees of the wood sing for joy before Jehovah.”

“My mind is cleansed by Christ; my life flows swift and strong; the peace of God wells up within, my soul bursts forth in song.”

Some people think it almost a sacrilege to sing when they feel bad. They think that that is the time to groan, and they usually do. That is the way the mortal looks at it, and that is the way you may happen to feel, but you can quickly be released from the prison of pain or grief if you will sing and praise and pray.

How to Sing Your Way out of Sadness

First sing in your soul—you can sing ’way down inside of yourself—then you will soon be singing with your voice. So we lay down the metaphysical law that everybody should know how to sing.

Everybody can sing. It does not make any difference what your previous thoughts have been about your ability to sing, it does not make any difference what you think about it at present, and it does not make any difference whether you can sing or not; cultivate the singing soul and you will some day break forth into a singing voice.

This is a creative law, and it is a law that everyone should know and use, because through the vibrations of the voice joined with high thinking, every cell in the body is set into action, and not only in the body but out into the environing thought atmosphere the vibrations go and break up all crystallized conditions.

The whole universe is in vibration, and that vibration is under law. Chaos would result if the law were not supreme. Each particular thing has its rate of vibration. Heat, light, and color are different rates of vibration in one field of primal energy. Different colors are caused by the different frequencies of the vibrations as they strike the eye. But what causes vibration? We answer Mind.

The cells of the body are centers of force in a field of universal energy. There are no solids. That which appears solid is in reality the scene of constant activity. The eye is not keyed to the pulsations of this universal energy and is therefore deceived into believing that things are solid. All energy and life are governed by laws of spiritual harmony.

Through the vibrations of the voice joined with high thinking, every cell in the body is set into action.

If the mind that receives sound vibrations is in spiritual consciousness, the body responds to the higher activity. If our mind were trained to think thoughts that harmonized with Divine Mind, we could hear the music of the spheres.

You can drive away the gloom of disappointment by resolutely singing a sunshine song. I believe that we could cultivate the power of music in connection with the understanding of Truth and thus rend all the bonds of sin, sickness, and death.

The world needs a new hymnal, with words of Truth only and music so strong and powerful that it will penetrate to the very center of the soul.

Our body is now tuned to the divine harmony; we shall find the keynote by listening in the silence to the singing soul.