Two-part Interview
(49:25)
Jill Purce talks to Dr Guy Hayward about her pioneering Healing Voice Mandala process. In this, the group itself becomes a mandala incorporating multiple and deep layers of symbolism in relation to the structure of consciousness according to the Tibetan understanding of the mind. Jill does these ceremonies twice a year, each with a different theme, process and practice. The group spends 5 days journeying through the mandala of extended practice and deep psychological explorations.
(46:23)
Jill Purce talks to Dr Guy Hayward about her Healing Family and Ancestors Workshops, describing how she combines chant and family constellations. She discusses the role of the ancestors and how by enlisting them as allies we can transform our lives and those of our families and children.
Videos
(18:09)
Part 1 of an interview with Jill on her Healing Family and Ancestor and Healing Voice work. Filmed at Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA USA, with Cynthia Cavalli and Gary S. Bobroff, 10th September 2015.
(8:15)
Part 2 of the September 2015 interview, talking about her Mandala ceremonies and including a story of synchronicity during her bethrothal to Rupert Sheldrake at an ancient Welsh church in 1985 (which she has never shared publicly before!)
(18:52)
Jill and Deepak discuss many of the miraculous effects of sound, including the creativity of sound, mantra, resonance and overtone chanting (which Jill demonstrates). They talk about the healing and transformative effects of the voice, and the magical, liberating and healing effects of Jill's Healing Voice work.
(2:57)
Jill speaks with Terence about overtone chanting and then provides a demonstration, within a wonderful renaissance rotunda.
About Jill
Jill Purce pioneered the international sound healing movement through her rediscovery of ancient vocal techniques, the teaching of overtone chanting, the power of group chant, and the spiritual potential of the voice as a magical instrument for healing and meditation. She pioneered the practice of honouring and healing ancestral traumas with her Healing Family and Ancestor work and her Resonant Family Constellations, and activated the mandala as living practice with her extended Mandala ceremonies. Her 1974 book The Mystic Spiral, Journey of the Soul was a seminal influence. The Bishop of California describes her contribution to the 1990’s installation of the labyrinths in his Grace Cathedral, San Francisco: "She helped inspire the birth of the modern labyrinth movement. Jill’s groundbreaking work with the labyrinth was inspiring, informative and important…it couldn’t have been done without her work.”
Healing Patterns From the Past
The past may be another country, but it's a place that can cause extreme suffering for people living in the present. Not just through historical causality or learned behaviours. Jill Purce, pioneer of the sound healing movement, has developed an approach to healing based on the understanding that unresolved ancestral patterns are transmitted transgenerationally.
For Purce there has never been a clear-cut line between science and spirituality. In her powerful voice work, she draws on acoustic research as much as ancient traditions of chant. More than 20 years ago she found a new focus for her interest in healing — the continuing effect of ancestral patterns on the living, and how these could be transformed. Now science seems to be catching up with her. Many recent findings, including those on the children of Holocaust survivors, suggest that the effects of severe trauma can be inherited epigenetically through the turning on and off of genes in a away that is not yet understood.
Chant to Change Your Life
I am not modest — I am trying to re-enchant the world and make it magical again through chanting. I want to reintroduce the extraordinary power of group chanting into our daily lives.
Chanting and singing bring joy and ecstasy back into our lives, by allowing us to acknowledge and become part of a power and dimension beyond our own — to praise and participate with the divine. It can also improve our health by reducing stress levels. Humming as we meditate can stop our mind wandering on to past problems and future fears.
Sound in Mind & Body
My particular interest in sound probably came to me in the womb, because my mother was a pianist and my father was a doctor. It is the healing and transformative power of sound that interests me most.
My work with sound started in the late '60's when I saw a film of the work of a man called Hans Jenny, a Swiss engineer and doctor who was influenced by the work of Rudolph Steiner. He was showing the effect of sound on matter. He had made it his life work to demonstrate what happens when you vibrate matter with sound in a variety of ways, and used all kinds of different substances...
The Healing Voice week intensive includes Jill's Living Mandala ceremony, her unique psychological process embedded in sonorous and deep spiritual practice. This enables us to heal and overcome obstacles, to transform who we are, our abundance, our relationships and how we realise our passion.
