BS: Buddhist chanting phenomenon.

Subject: BS: Bhuddist chanting phenomenon.
From: Donuel
Date: 30 Oct 06 - 09:42 PM

I was recalling how when more than 20 people cahnting bhuddist sutras a pecukiar crackling noise fills the air. I have recorded this phenomenon a number of times since it is picked up by the microphone. When it is happening however the sound seems to come from inside your own ears.

Has anyone ever noticed this eithier in chanting, prayer or choral situations?
I suppose there is a scientific explanation but even a BS one would dl :)

Subject: RE: BS: Bhuddist chanting phenomenon.
From: Ebbie
Date: 30 Oct 06 - 10:04 PM

I'm looking forward to this discussion!

Subject: RE: BS: Buddhist chanting phenomenon.
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Oct 06 - 10:57 PM

Spiritual chanting can raise a high energy, so that may account for it. I can't personally say I've heard such a crackling sound as you mention, Donuel, but I'm intrigued. I certainly have felt the energy raised during sustained chanting, but I have not heard any such crackling sounds.

Subject: RE: BS: Buddhist chanting phenomenon.
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 30 Oct 06 - 11:14 PM

Donuel,

perhaps you are not sufficiently 'grounded' - those who are, will of course, not have this problem...

Subject: RE: BS: Buddhist chanting phenomenon.
From: Little Hawk
Date: 31 Oct 06 - 01:46 AM

It's always a good idea to show respect for people's personal accounts of their own experience, and keep an open mind about it. That doesn't mean you must believe it...it simply means you have no particular reason for automatically disbelieving it, that's all.

That form of common and reasonable courtesy toward other people's personal experiences and their accounts of them seems to elude most skeptics for some reason...

Subject: RE: BS: Buddhist chanting phenomenon.
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 31 Oct 06 - 10:30 AM

Very interesting

Is the "peculiar crackling noise" associated with a particular location?
Does the same noise occur in different venues?

Is the noise associated with a particular sutra?

You mentioned the number of chanters.
You don't get the noise when there are fewer than 20 chanters?

Subject: RE: BS: Buddhist chanting phenomenon.
From: Donuel
Date: 31 Oct 06 - 10:32 AM

Its not a matter of a personal experience since everyone I ever talked to at the time easlily heard the crackling noise.
On tape it sounds like static but records faily accurately.
It probably has something to do with interference wave patterns turning on and off.

This does not happen in music since an adherence to harmonic pitch is desired. When people are not constrained by precise pitch, a general concensus of tone and pitch occurs but it seems to hover around a common pitch or harmony and not dead on intonation.

In the chanting of certain sutras I have noticed how the group collectively settles on a major third followed by a minor third out of sheer improvisation.

To make the crackling happen on purpose in a performance might indeed prove difficult. When I used to notice the crackling sound it usually developed after several minutes. While Tibetan harmonic singing can be done by an individual the crackling effect can only be achieved in a group.

Subject: RE: BS: Buddhist chanting phenomenon.
From: mack/misophist
Date: 31 Oct 06 - 10:34 AM

I have known people who chanted regularly at the local Zen center and never heard of this. And it's certainly the kind of thing they would mention.

Subject: RE: BS: Buddhist chanting phenomenon.
From: Amos
Date: 31 Oct 06 - 10:37 AM

People who chant together move toward chanting in the same key, but don't quite get there, and similarly move toward chanting the same syllables at the same time, but don't quite get there. I would offer that this noise could be a byproduct of the interference beats set up by these similar time-and-pitch waves banging into each other slightly out of synch.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Buddhist chanting phenomenon.
From: Little Hawk
Date: 31 Oct 06 - 10:42 AM

Most interesting. I've participated in a lot of group chanting and never heard this happen, so it may have something to do with the particular sutras or that particular group of people.

Chanting is very revitalizing if you get on with it and do it...just as is regular singing...and the energy of many people in a group heightens the experience. It's good for the physical system, the emotional system, and the spiritual system too (if you accept that there is such a thing).

Subject: RE: BS: Buddhist chanting phenomenon.
From: Donuel
Date: 31 Oct 06 - 10:43 AM

Amos, that is precisely what I think, but you went further by including the timing of similar syllables possilby enhancing the effect.

Subject: RE: BS: Buddhist chanting phenomenon.
From: Ebbie
Date: 31 Oct 06 - 10:46 AM

I keep thinking of the crackling noise that some people mention in connection with the Northern Lights, the Aurora Borealis.

Subject: RE: BS: Buddhist chanting phenomenon.
From: Amos
Date: 31 Oct 06 - 11:02 AM

I doubt the energy discharges in a room full of temple-tantrums is anything close to the arcing voltage involved inthe northern lights, Ebb. They are orders of magnitude different in frequency AND current. So I don't see how the chanters could produce audible sound, by (for example) the periodic collapse and re-energizing of their auras or some such.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Buddhist chanting phenomenon.
From: Donuel
Date: 31 Oct 06 - 11:05 AM

Speaking of chanting, George W is now asking people to chant after him. On his whirlwind tour he asks the crowd to repeat after him.
He says "If a Democrat wins" repeat... "Al Quida wins" ....
I've heard various versions of this on AM radio however when the crowd is suppose to repeat W it has always sounded totally garbled.

Subject: RE: BS: Buddhist chanting phenomenon.
From: Donuel
Date: 31 Oct 06 - 11:12 AM

If you ever have the opportunity to hear this crackling sound, expect to hear it as a crackling noise that seems to be originating within your own ear canal. It can make you question whether the sound is coming from within or without, but it is definately coming from the crowd of mixed voices.

Subject: RE: BS: Buddhist chanting phenomenon.
From: catspaw49
Date: 31 Oct 06 - 11:39 AM

Buddhist monk chanting??? A crackling noise??? Hmmmmm.......................Thinking back to the early 60's in Southeast Asia .....................Hmmmmmmm ...............monk .....chant......crackling .......Tell ya' what Donnie. You might want to lay off that chanting stuff before you become Monk Flambeau.............just a thought..............

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Buddhist chanting phenomenon.
From: Ebbie
Date: 31 Oct 06 - 12:56 PM

I wasn't implying that the two noises - the chanting and the aurora - were emanating from the same source. I *am* wondering if there is a phenomenon that can occur when energies are raised.

Subject: RE: BS: Buddhist chanting phenomenon.
From: Wolfgang
Date: 31 Oct 06 - 01:19 PM

I don't know how the crackling noise is made nor have I ever heard it. But: My theory at why it sounds as coming from inside the ear goes like that.

As a crackling noise we describe sounds with an extremely short duration following shortly one after the other with irregular intervals (Poisson distributed onset times most likely). We hear direction mainly by "comparing" (actually there are neurons tuned to do this work for us, namely neurons firing at maximum respectively for different onset intervals in both ears) which ear did first hear the sound and how long it took the other ear to record it as well.

If both ears are reached at the same time the sound comes from exactly in front (behind, above, below). If the interval is longest the sound comes exactly from one side (and other intervals between point to other angles. Some other processes that play no role in my explanation help you to tell whether the sound was in front or behind you.

One crack just sounds very much like the other. Imagine so many cracks in a short time that the intervals between them are in the order of onset time differences between the two ears.

For the sake of simplicity, imagine a series of 4 cracks in quick temporal order with irregular but very short intervals. The neurons in both ears signal eight crack onsets. The Neurons further up in the path (where the information of both ears is integrated), those that react upon onset differences, now run wild. The onset of crack 1 in the left ear and crack 1 in the right ear give one time difference (pointing to one direction). The onset of crack 1 in the right ear and crack 2 in the left ear give another time difference (pointing to another direction. Even the onset of crack 1 in one ear and crack 4 in the other may lead to a time difference compatible with still another direction of origin.

Now the binaural direction detection neurons run amok. Each of these many time differences points to another direction of the sound and all these directions are not compatible with each other. In addition to that the physical sound too may come from different directions. All sound directions sensitive neurons are stimulated and all of them fire close to maximum.

The "interpretation" for even higher up neuronal wiring is straightforward but confusing: The sounds come from all very quickly changing directions and not consistently from what our eyes tells us who does the chanting. The brain (Amos, look the other way) interprets this firing pattern as sounds originating in the ears, for noises coming from all directions often at the same time make no sense.

Add to that the atmosphere of Buddhist chanting, and the near simultaneous firing of neurons "reporting" all different directions leads to an impressive personal experience. It is a fine example of an acoustical illusion.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Buddhist chanting phenomenon.
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 31 Oct 06 - 01:20 PM

I'd have gone for something a lot more mundane - like the crackling noise in your ears when hearing a particularly loud noise such as jets doing a low flypast or a line of tanks firing up their engines. It's a little like the crackling some (audio) speakers make when overloaded. With 20 or more chanters perhaps there is an overload on particular frequencies that results in the same effect.

Subject: RE: BS: Buddhist chanting phenomenon.
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 31 Oct 06 - 02:19 PM

I just said what Wolfgang said, but more stupidly...

Subject: RE: BS: Buddhist chanting phenomenon.
From: Little Hawk
Date: 31 Oct 06 - 02:52 PM

I just discovered that I can produce a crackling noise in my ear simply by moving the muscles around there...the scalp muscles and those muscles which are in proximity to the ear. Try it and see if you get a crackling noise. At least some of those muscles will be moved when one is singing as well.

Subject: RE: BS: Buddhist chanting phenomenon.
From: Ebbie
Date: 31 Oct 06 - 03:09 PM

Donuel, of course, also says that these crackling noises are recordable. Care to address that?

Subject: RE: BS: Buddhist chanting phenomenon.
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 31 Oct 06 - 04:35 PM

Recordable, or reproducible when the recording is played? - that's the question. Can Donuel play back the recording at a low volume and see if the crackling is still there? That should answer this.

Subject: RE: BS: Buddhist chanting phenomenon.
From: Little Hawk
Date: 31 Oct 06 - 04:58 PM

Donuel may well be talking about a different phenomenon than what I got by moving those muscles, Ebbie. I just mentioned it as a matter of interest.

Subject: RE: BS: Buddhist chanting phenomenon.
From: katlaughing
Date: 31 Oct 06 - 05:01 PM

Amos, temple-tantrums???!

Subject: RE: BS: Buddhist chanting phenomenon.
From: John O'L
Date: 31 Oct 06 - 05:15 PM

"One crack sounds very much like the other"

Now that rings a bell...

Subject: RE: BS: Buddhist chanting phenomenon.
From: Donuel
Date: 31 Oct 06 - 08:21 PM

Yes the crackling noise recording plays quite audibly. However it sounds like part of the group instead of inside the ear when it is live.


Btw: The chanting is the Nam yo ho Renge Kyo variety

One Japanese priest and about 40 typical Buffalo NY chanters.

Subject: RE: BS: Buddhist chanting phenomenon.
From: Paul Burke
Date: 01 Nov 06 - 03:39 AM

When you play the whistle in a room with a bit of reverberation, you hear a low "whump- whump" noise. It's real, because you can hear it on recordings of whistles too, even in a damped room (Willy Clancy recordings particularly- perhaps a flag-floored kitchen?).

It could be due to the spiritual energy produced by playing Irish music on the whistle, and perhaps someone could develop a spiritual ergometer to measure this.

Alternatively, it could be due to the mixing of the sound with a delayed echo (say 10-50ms depending on the size of the room), and the resulting effect of this on the non- linearities of the ear and the aural perception process.

I'll leave it to others (first year undergrads) to devise those experiments.

Subject: RE: BS: Buddhist chanting phenomenon.
From: Ebbie
Date: 01 Nov 06 - 10:56 AM

The whump-whump could also be made in the musician's throat and breath.

Little Hawk, I pointed my remark to Wolfgang. I thought your remark was interesting because I too have noticed that there are a number of moving parts inside one's skull that are audible. :)

Subject: RE: BS: Buddhist chanting phenomenon.
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Nov 06 - 11:34 AM

Oh, I see. ;-)

Paul Burke - And what if everything is spiritual? My opinion is that most people only regard something as spiritual if it's seemingly not explainable through some mechanical or physical process that is already known to them. Heh! I don't look at it that way at all. I look at everything as spiritual...matter, energy, mathematics, geometry, time, space, you name it. Something does not cease to be spiritual when you find a rational explanation for it, it just becomes better understood, that's all.

Subject: RE: BS: Buddhist chanting phenomenon.
From: Paul Burke
Date: 01 Nov 06 - 11:48 AM

Everything is spiritual, if you see some spiritual dimension to it. That's because spiritual is something created by the human mind. A sunset, a pebbly beach, a waterfall, the song of birds, the colours of a film of oil on water, another human's words, a beautiful machine....

The fact that it's explicable in other terms doesn't take away any spirituality. Don't get spirit (the human response to the world) mixed up with magic. And don't make the mistake that just because something has meanings to some people, it shouldn't be touched in other ways.

The Christian or Cherokee creation myths are full of meanings to Cherokees or Christians. That doesn't have any impact on geology or palaeontology, unless they try to claim that, since they have "explained" the world, it's wrong for other people to look for other (better IMHO) explanations.

I suppose the real danger point is when people mix up a metaphor or analogy with a real description.

Subject: RE: BS: Buddhist chanting phenomenon.
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Nov 06 - 12:04 PM

Little Hawk - have you got dried-up earwax?

Subject: RE: BS: Buddhist chanting phenomenon.
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Nov 06 - 01:00 PM

Agree, Paul.

No, Guest. I take baths, and that tends to eliminate that problem. I recommend baths to clean out earwax. Just lie back and enjoy the warm water. Showers won't do it, and baths work better than those stupid Q-tips.

Subject: RE: BS: Buddhist chanting phenomenon.
From: Donuel
Date: 01 Nov 06 - 06:57 PM

I have seen things defy the modern physics I have been taught but I don't buy into the spiritual energy noise hypothesis.

There are a group of "ghost" hunters who offer "proof" of ghosts by playing tapes in which you can hear someone say something.

well duh...

Subject: RE: BS: Buddhist chanting phenomenon.
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Nov 06 - 11:52 PM

Photographs make much more compelling proof when it comes to ghosts...but they will always be disputed regardless by people who weren't there and don't want to believe in anything like that in the first place.

Subject: RE: BS: Buddhist chanting phenomenon.
From: Paul Burke
Date: 02 Nov 06 - 03:25 AM

The only sensible reaction to an apparent demonstration of a ghost is, not than to say "hey, that disproves science!", but to try to reproduce the phenomenon and find out something about it. You might find, for example, that a natural phenomenon like a subsonic frequency might trigger a physical reaction in the brain. The expression of this could be influenced by culturally acquired mental forms, thus explaining why ghosts change from society to society and from one age to another. Of course, it won't explain photographs, but that's a matter for a different study.

It's worth knowing what a ghost is. After all, if you're going to spend the next 400 years flitting across a deserted churchyard, you don't want to be known as The Man In Purple Lycra Shorts, do you? As my Granny always said, make sure you're wearing fresh underwear, in case you have an accident and have to go to hospital.

Subject: RE: BS: Buddhist chanting phenomenon.
From: Wolfgang
Date: 08 Nov 06 - 11:48 AM

Ebbie,

if you read my post you'll see that I have clearly stated right at the beginning that I did not mean to address how the cracks were made but only how it comes that they are perceived as coming from inside the head. My theory starts with the assumption that the cracks are real and then goes on to explain how multiple cracks can fool the subsystem responsible for recording the spatial position of a sound. Real cracks should be recordable, of course.

In my theory the cracks are real but the perception of spatial origin is an acoustical illusion.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Buddhist chanting phenomenon.
From: catspaw49
Date: 08 Nov 06 - 12:03 PM

I dunno' if this relates but it came up on some previous posts so maybe there is some correlation.

I knew a guy with a priapic condition (perpetual bner) and he met this nice Chinese girl who was really interested in him. They were sitting on the couch and she was whispering in his ears, running her tongue around them, and things were progressing along. He asked her if she could help him with his "condition" and she said, "Oh yes. You need woks job." He figured this was something oriental and probably related to cooking, so he agreed. She left the room and came back with two flat paddles, a ball of twine, and some handcuffs......but no Wok.

Once again she ran her tongue around both his ears and then took down his pants. Without comment, she took his priapic member and laid it on one of the paddles, gently tying it in place with the twine. Again she kissed both cheeks and delicately ran her tongue around his ears. Then she handcuffed both hands behind his back and picked up the other paddle. She raised it high above her head and with a loud shriek, slapped it down on top of the other, flattening his willie between them. The guy's entire body stiffened as though it were undergoing an electrical shock......and the wax shot out of his ears.

Don't know if he heard any cracking noises...................

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Buddhist chanting phenomenon.
From: Dave'sWife
Date: 08 Nov 06 - 03:52 PM

>>>In the chanting of certain sutras I have noticed how the group collectively settles on a major third followed by a minor third out of sheer improvisation.<<<

Back when my mum used to drag me to these very wacky Charismatic Catholic prayer meetings (late 1970s), people would fall into tongues and eventualy sing in tonuges. the same Major third/minor third pattern tended to develop. Every now and then though, you'd get a different pattern with an augmented fourth and other "perfect" chords but your third/third pattern was the norm. it'd take a few minutes to develop and then would rise and fall in a repeatable pattern.