Gong Bath!

Last night I went to a very weird "show" with Amber, called a "gong bath." It was presented by an Australian couple. They stood on a stage in front of about 75 adults sitting or lying on yoga mats and spouted a lot of new age kookiness about water having memory, objects in the universe each possessing their own unique vibration, and cell membranes opening to let toxins out and good vibrations in. The presentation was meant to be some kind of healing ceremony, although most of the people in the audience looked perfectly healthy already.

The first half of the presentation consisted of "toning," where everyone was asked to close their eyes, imagine blue light, and send healing intentions toward people they love as they allowed vocal tones to escape them on their relaxed out-breath. A kind of unguided chanting, in other words. Some of that was starting to sound pretty cool before a few women began singing actual melodies with foreign words they had learned. I'm not sure why they did that — the Australians had told us beforehand that the idea was definitely not to sing — but it really ruined the chaotic power of the drone, at least to my ears.

However, that power was brought back tenfold in the second half of the evening's performance. This was the gong bath proper. The Australians faced six different-sized gongs out toward the audience. We were told that the gongs were "tuned to the planets." I don't know what that meant. This time we were all instructed to lie down and close our eyes, imagining a purple light bathing us and everything else in its glow. At least, I think that's what they said. I was having a hard time hearing them from the back of the auditorium, which was probably a good thing.

After some more mumbo jumbo in which they quoted Albert Einstein to bolster their spurious understanding of quantum physics (even though Einstein notoriously rejected quantum theory right up to his death), they started to play the gongs. And they were really good at it. The different sizes were hit at different times with different intensities, their semichaotic sound waves allowed to interact with each other in surprising and often overpowering ways. Sometimes the gongs were rubbed for an extra eerie effect. The whole thing sounded something like this.



I don't mind telling you, I saw that purple light and had a lot of strange visions besides. I also became very aware of my entire body, then my mind, then dissociated from either of them, then aware of everyone in the room, then identical to everyone in the room, and finally identical to the sound itself. It was incredibly psychedelic and mystical. Plus, it was just an intensely enjoyable experience on a musical level. Well worth the ticket price and the baloney-tolerating.