The principle of vibration
MAY 2, 2021 (updated on March 5, 2024)
“Nothing rests; everything stirs; everything vibrates.” [1]
Table of contents
The third principle stated by Hermes, the principle of vibration should be familiar to you if you have been following this series since the beginning! Indeed, as we saw in the article devoted to the principle of mentalism, vibration occupies a specific place in hermetic teaching: it is considered the fourth dimension of the universe.
This is a statement that would have made more than one classical physicist jump! Some, such as Ernst Chladni, the precursor of cymatics, or even Poincaré, who introduced the notion of resonance, had nonetheless understood the importance of vibration [2]. But it is the time parameter that has imposed in the equations. Moreover, paradoxically, we also owe to Poincaré the notion of space-time, a fourth temporal dimension that Einstein confirmed in the theory of special relativity in 1905.
When quantum physics arrived, it “rediscovered” vibration so to speak. More contemporary physicists such as Joel Sternheimer and Nassim Haramein have brought it back to the forefront by basing their theory on resonance.
But what is a vibration? How does it propagate? How do vibrations attract each other? In this article, I propose to explore physics from the point of view of the principle of vibration.
Principle of vibration and physics
What is a vibration ?
The vibration that we are perhaps most familiar with, but do not necessarily pay attention to, is sound. Technically, sound is a mechanical vibration of a gaseous, liquid or solid medium, which propagates in the form of waves thanks to the elastic deformation of this medium. We feel this vibration through our sense of hearing.
The experience of silence could make us believe in the absence of vibration. But if we had a direct experience of the quantum level, we would see that this world is entirely and constantly governed by vibration. This is what the Hermetists understood and why they made it a key principle.
Field, frequency and energy
Everything we observe at our scale, starting with ourselves, is made of atoms. Atoms are not solid and it is incorrect to represent them as small balls. It is impossible to say where an atom begins and ends. An atom is simply a small oscillation in a specific region of space, defined by a wavelength.
More generally, we say that all particles in the quantum world are fields. A field is a relation between a delimited portion of space and a measurable physical quantity, in this case a wavelength, and therefore a frequency. Knowing this information allows us to define both the size and the energy of the particles that make up the field [3].
The quantum field is like a sea of vibratory energy that fills all space. Each point that composes it allows the emergence or annihilation of particles. It has infinite energy [4].
At our scale, in default of perceiving this vibration, we can experience that the energy of a field fades in space. This is why, for example, we can no longer pick up radio transmissions outside of its precise frequency, characterized by an electromagnetic field.
But in concrete terms, what is a vibration? Cymatics can help us to get a better idea.
Cymatics
The Vedas, the oldest manuscripts in the world [5], report the existence of an original vibration. A primordial sound which would have the property of progressively giving form to matter until it solidifies before returning to this primordial sound: OM [6]. This sacred sound would represent the highest frequency waves, those that never rest!
Under certain conditions, when a sound wave passes through matter, it organizes itself according to the nature of the vibration and the material used to spontaneously produce geometric patterns. The OM sound has thus been materialized as a circle around a central point. The study of the visible form of sounds and vibrations is the subject of cymatics.
Discovery and theories
The father of modern acoustics, the German physicist Ernst Chladni (1756 – 1827) was the first to demonstrate this particular organization of matter.
Using a violin bow, he set a metal plate on which sand was placed into vibration. Maintaining this vibration, he noticed that the sand moved thanks to the deformation of the support caused by the sound waves. Specifically, the sand moves from areas of strong vibration to areas of weak or no vibration, until it forms a stationary geometric pattern [7]. However, the geometrical figures only appear when the frequencies emitted through the bow are in resonance [8] with those of the plate.
Continuing Chladni’s work with new techniques, the Swiss doctor Hans Jenny (1904 – 1972) managed to recreate natural forms such as spirals. He varied and multiplied the parameters of resonance by using sand, iron filings, water, viscous substances… Considered the father of cymatics, he sought a theory of the organization of the universe by vibrations.
This is also the quest of Alexander Lauterwasser (born 1951). This German researcher and photographer uses water as the main vector of sound waves [9]. Taking up the work of Chladni and Jenny, he observed a resemblance between cymatic figures and certain natural structures such as flowers, fruits, skeletons… Then he developed the idea of a sonogenesis of the universe. For him, the order of the world would be of a sonic nature: the vibration of sound would continuously sculpt and organize matter…
In pictures
Demonstration of cymatics in pictures (Source : Wikipedia) :
We have a more accurate representation of the vibration; now the question is: how it is transmitted?
Ether or not ether ?
I have already discussed this question in the article Unity, from ether to space, I will just repeat here the essential elements, in order to put them in perspective with the Hermetists’ point of view. According to them, ether exists and serves as a transmission medium for waves such as heat, light, electricity, magnetism… More precisely, ether connects the forms of vibratory energy between them. It is a substance whose vibration is higher than that of matter.
Classical physicists have long sought the ether. On the one hand to explain the forces that act at a distance, such as gravitation, and on the other hand to explain the travel of light waves in the vacuum. These physicists presupposed the uniform rectilinear motion of light, and they needed a material ether to try to account for this motion.
Quantum physicists saw things differently. They discovered that the world of the infinitely small is teeming with ephemeral particles. The vacuum is not empty, it has an energy that remains when all other forms of energy have been removed. This form of energy is reminiscent of the properties of the ether as described by the Hermetists. But it is not named as such, we speak of quantum vacuum fluctuations.
Nassim Haramein shows that, far from being erratic, these fluctuations structure space-time according to the pattern of the flower of life [10], from the Planck field [11] to the cosmological scale.
You can see the dynamics of this structure on the animation he proposes.
In short, this physicist links together the different scales of the universe, highlighting a phenomenon of scale propagation.
Scaling waves
Waves, in the classical sense of the term, propagate vibrations, such as the oscillation of a medium, from one point to another. They are characterized by a wavelength, a frequency and a period. They are therefore spread out in time and space.
Scale waves, on the other hand, link the different levels of structuring of matter from the fundamental particles to organisms and their environment. The concept of scale waves puts the subject back at the center of the description of phenomena. The universe is no longer described as an object seen from the outside, but as a whole of which we are part [12].
The concept of scale waves was introduced by Joel Sternheimer (born 1943), professor at the European Research University, doctor in theoretical physics and former student of the Nobel Prize in Physics, Louis de Broglie (1892 – 1987). In 1992, he patented the “epigenetic regulation process of protein biosynthesis by scale resonance“. According to him, the scale dimension is like an autonomous dimension in relation to space-time.
So it would seem that on the one hand there are waves that depend on time and on the other hand waves that do not depend on time. What could be the meaning of this distinction for the Hermetists, who think only in terms of vibration?
Before turning to the work of Joël Sternheimer, I would like to explore this question, in direct relation to that of movement.
Vibration propagation
Motion – in terms of trajectory – occupies a central place in the theories of classical physics, in particular the theory of relativity. Indeed, for Einstein (1879 – 1955), everything is motion in a moving space-time. However, it is interesting to note that Poincaré (1854 – 1912) had introduced the notion of resonance in chaotic systems. Directly related to frequencies, and thus to vibrations, resonance supplanted the notion of trajectory. Quantum physicists also abandoned this notion, replacing it with the description of the wave associated with particles.
For Hermetists, vibration is the common denominator of everything that manifests in the temporal sphere. Each component of creation has its own vibratory signature. Movement then results from the differences in vibratory density between these components.
Nassim Haramein has a rather similar point of view. According to him, the real movement crosses scales: all information emanates from the Planck field and returns to it [13]. In doing so, the information passes through different vibrational densities. The passage from one scale to the next takes place through a fractal process, one level always containing the information to generate the next.
If there is a point of convergence between rhythmic structures inscribed in time and geometric structures inscribed in space, it is perhaps between the theory of Joël Sternheimer and that of Nassim Haramein that it lies… Let us continue our exploration..
The music of proteins
A tailor-made score
“The amino acids that come into harmony to make the protein are a sequence of waves similar to a sequence of notes on a sheet of music.”
JOEL STERNHEIMER [14]
Joël Sternheimer notes that, during protein synthesis, the amino acids of plants emit sequences of quantum vibrations. These vibrations propagate in space-time, but also in a scale dimension, forming a wave that links the scale of the amino acid to the scale of the protein being formed.
Although they are inaudible to the human ear, quantum vibrations can be transposed into the musical sound range. Joël Sternheimer, also a musician, has succeeded in associating a note with each of the sequences produced by the amino acids, obtaining a series of harmonized sounds, a melody specific to each protein that he has called “proteody”. Proteody is simply a resonance between a melody and a protein that has the same sequence of frequencies.
Living organisms are able to recognize proteodies. In a human being who hears a proteody, two circuits resonate – that of the brain and that of the hair cells of the ear – to stimulate or inhibit the synthesis of the corresponding protein [15].
In plants, there are as many proteodies as there are plant varieties. Each species therefore requires a specific partition to activate its growth process. It is also possible to stimulate a species and inhibit a parasite. Joël Sternheimer has thus found the protein that enables tomatoes to resist drought and insect attacks. By feeding the corresponding proteody to tomato plants in Africa, he obtained taller plants, larger fruits and a twenty-fold increase in yield!
The music of the masses
At the time he made these discoveries, the physicist was working on the mass of particles, based on the work of Louis de Broglie. In 1923, de Broglie had established an equivalence between the two energy formulas:
Einstein’s formula (E = mc²) and Planck’s formula (E = hν)
So mc² = hν, or m = νh/c²
(m is the mass, ν (nu) is the frequency, h is Planck’s constant, and c is the speed of light)
According to de Broglie, a mass must have a certain vibration. That’s why Joël Sternheimer had the idea of translating the masses of particles into musical frequencies. Then he realized that these are distributed between them like the musical notes in the tempered chromatic scale. This scale divides the octave [16] into 12 equal parts. What does this mean? That the scale waves bring coherence to masses!
The tempered range has the property of being transposable to all scales. This is all the more interesting since there are similarities between the mass formulas of particles and the mass formulas of black holes. Indeed, the mass of a particle is given by the radius of curvature of its trajectory, and the mass of a black hole is given by the Schwarzschild radius – the radius below which all photons have elliptical trajectories and cannot escape the black hole.
The holographic mass formula given by Nassim Haramein leaves no doubt on the matter. This entirely geometrical solution is the proof of scale invariance: it applies to particles as well as to black holes since particles are black holes [17] !
Principle of vibration and mental states
“The creative force always locks itself into what it has created.”
The Hermetists teach that an object that rotates faster and faster will pass through all the forms of energy of the vibratory continuum to reintegrate the Whole, namely sound, heat, color, invisible radiation, electricity, magnetism, atoms, ether, mental stages, Spirit, and finally, reintegration of the Whole.
This means that energy only changes its form, its vibratory density. Between matter and Spirit, there are indeed millions and millions of different degrees of vibration. Precisely, the various manifestations of Matter, Energy, Soul, and even Spirit, are the consequence of an unequal proportion of vibrations.
The higher forms of energy are confined within the various combinations of matter. Thus we understand how thought – the principle of mentalism – lives within all manifestation. And how, when it reaches a vibration so high that it is beyond duality, thought is suspended.
The stillness point
The stillness point is like the materialization of the sound OM: a central point in the middle of a circle. The point represents consciousness. The circle contains the energy that unfolds from this point. Everything is energy that vibrates at a different frequency, at a different speed, in a different direction, in a different way.
Does this mean that consciousness is static? Fortunately not! The point only appears to be motionless because it is in a state of harmonic resonance, it is in a rhythmic and balanced exchange of energy, vibrating at very high intensity and speed.
The remarkable thing about Nassim Haramein’s theory is that it accounts for this point of “immobility”. Why does this physicist attach so much importance to it? Firstly, because he has found a way to access it in his personal inner experience. And secondly, because he believes that this point is necessary for the dynamics of the universe – without which there can be no personal experience! The stillness point is indeed the condition of possibility of all movement: it is the central singularity [18] that allows objects to turn, from the infinitely small to the infinitely large.
Everything meets at the stillness point. It is the space of formlessness and identitylessness. The point that contains everything without any movement in the temporal sense. The space in which nothing can be perceived, or rather everything can be perceived without possible distinction, without differential, without discrimination. Stillness is consciousness without movement, a consciousness that is aware of itself without being able to “dissociate from itself” and experience its aspects in energy.
But let’s return to thought and mental states.
Principle of vibration, induction and mental transmutation
Some of the vibrations that accompany mental states (thoughts, emotions, desire…) can influence other individuals by induction. Mental induction is a natural phenomenon, based on the electromagnetic field generated by the mind. Thanks to induction, the Masters can transmit, sometimes by their mere presence, a part of their strength and knowledge to their disciples [19]. But induction can also be used negatively, in cases of collective hypnosis for example.
Unless we have reached the state of awakening, we are all potentially influenced by induction. And a fortiori if we ignore the existence of this phenomenon! Otherwise, the best way to protect ourselves from negative influences is to create and maintain the highest vibration possible. Indeed, a higher vibration always prevails over a lower vibration.
It is the mental transmutation that allows us to do this. It is described by the Hermetists as the practical application of the principle of vibration. According to them, as human beings, we can not only produce vibrations at will on the mental plane, but also polarize our mind and make it reach the desired degree [20].
The law of attraction
Have you ever had the experience of recalling an event with someone who lived it with you, and found that you remember it very differently? This is due to the emotional component with which our memories are stored. This component depends on :
– the emotional resonance that the event in question had on us
– our emotional maturity of the moment, able to manage or not this resonance [21]
The vibration offers, through resonance, a support to the manifestation, to our creations. When we emit a vibration, we emit the combination of two things: what we think about most often and the emotion we associate with it. Our most intense and frequent thoughts and emotions shape our vibrational state. A vibration attracts a similar vibration. This is why an emotion calls up past events to which we have associated, even unconsciously, the same emotion.
Our vibratory state is the information we send to the universe. The universe, subject to the principle of correspondence, sends us back circumstances, people and events in resonance with this vibration. Thus, what will manifest in our experience will reflect what is most often happening inside us. We are constantly transmitting/receiving because we are bathed in the vibratory continuum of the universe.
One can of course decide to consciously create a mental state through mental transmutation. However, in order to attract the corresponding vibration, one must also be able to maintain this state in duration and intensity, just like the vibration one must maintain to create a stationary Chladni figure…!
I now invite you to continue your exploration of the principle of polarity.
Key points
- The vibratory continuum of the universe unfolds from the sound vibration.
- Vibrations structure the universe by scale propagation from the infinitely small to the infinitely large. They follow a fractal progression, crossing different vibrational densities.
- Vibration is the common denominator of all that manifests in the temporal sphere.
- Mental transmutation is the practical application of the principle of vibration.
Notes & references
Principle of vibration and physics
[1] Unless otherwise noted, all quotes are from the Kybalion.
[2] So did inventor Nikola Tesla (1856 – 1943), who said, “If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency, information, and vibration.”
[3] This is Planck’s formula, the basis of quantum physics, which relates frequency to energy: E = h ν (E is energy, h is Planck’s constant and ν (nu) is frequency).
[4] See also the section on quantum field theory.
[5] The Vedas materialize an oral teaching given for millennia.
[6] If you wish to know more, I invite you to consult this article on the primordial sound (in french)
[7] A standing wave results from the superposition of two waves of opposite direction, of same frequency but not necessarily of same amplitude. We then observe a vibration that stays in place, of different intensity at each observed point.
[8] A stimulation and an object enter into resonance when their frequencies agree.
[9] See his book Images sonores d’eau, la musique créatrice de l’univers [Sound images of water, the creative music of the universe], Médicis Editions, 2019
[10] To learn more, you can consult the article dedicated to space-time.
[11] The Planck field is the smallest oscillation that determines our relationship to the universe.
Scales waves
[12] See, in resonance with this problematic, the article Objectivity, the blind spot of science.
[13] See also the article Movement and perception.
[14] STERNHEIMER Joël, quoted by DOMINGUEZ Pauline A., Le savant qui fait chanter les particules [The scientist who makes particles sing], Usbek & Rica, August 17, 2016 (in french).
[15] To learn more, read his talk at the Tokyo Academy of Sciences (in french).
[16] In music, the octave is the interval between two notes of the same name. It is a ratio between a frequency and twice that frequency.
[17] For more information, see the article on the Schwarzschild proton.
Principle of vibration and mental states
[18] In physics, a singularity is an area of space-time where the density of matter, temperature, energy… become infinite.
[19] This is probably what happened between Madeleine and me when my aneurysm burst.
[20] See also this section on mental transmutation.
[21] Moral: probably neither person has the right memory, because in any case this component limits the understanding of what really happened.
On the same theme
