New Article Posted: A Comprehensive Study of Cymatics & Dr. Hans Jenny

Read a comprehensive review of the extremely important work of Dr. Hans Jenny called “Cymatics” here.  Images will be posted soon.  It is highly recommended that you buy a copy of Cymatics: Volume I and II if you are a serious student of sacred geometry.

Cymatics Vol. I & II is presently out of print, but it is currently being extensively revised and expanded by MACROmedia Publishing.  It is expected to be available once again the beginning of 2023!  Visit the website here: http://www.cymaticsource.com/

All quotes below are from Cymatics Vol. I & II, edited by Jeff Volk, unless otherwise stated.

Robert Lawlor writes, “It is in the work of Hans Jenny that we can begin to see the relationship of form and sound in the physical world.  Jenny’s experiments have shown that sound frequencies have the propensity to call into arrangement random, suspended particles, or to organize emulsions in hydro-dynamic dispersion into orderly, formal, periodic patterns.  In other words, sound is an instrument through which temporal frequency patterns can become formal spatial and geometric patterns.”

The following excellent introduction to Dr. Jenny is written by Jeff Volk, editor at MACROmedia Publishing:

“Dr. Hans Jenny (1904-1972) was a Swiss physician and natural scientist who coined the term Cymatics to describe acoustic effects of sound wave phenomena.”2  Let us take a brief, yet deeper look at this extraordinary man named Hans Jenny.  Christiaan Stuten writes that “Hans Jenny was indeed a Renaissance man, his diverse callings woven together by his dynamic personality which was characterized by great intensity and a profound sense of competency in all that he undertook.”  From a very young age Hans had a natural skill and aptitude for music.  He played the organ for church sermons but “his tastes were as broad as his talents and he was equally at ease improvising  jazz as performing a piano sonata.”

Hans Jenny developed a deep love for music, yet was rather indifferent to the religion he was taught.  He did learn the Bible, however, as well as classical and modern history, and the languages of Latin and Greek.  He deeply studied the works of Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Mozart, Wagner, Plato, Aristotle, Heraclitus, Nietzsche, and perhaps most important of all, Goethe.

Hans was described as “a most entertaining man whose sharp wit was tempered with heartfelt compassion.”  He became a family physician in the village of Dornach for over 30 years and was quite popular among his patients as well as the citizens of the towns and villages in the area.  “With his breadth of interest, sense of humor, and his positively magnetic personality, he could quickly develop rapport with just about anyone, and his vibrancy was so infectious that no sooner did he enter the room than his patients would feel better!”

While he continued his medical practice, he was also an avid birdwatcher and artist.  “Since early childhood he had liked to draw and paint, primarily animals and their environs.  This “hobby” grew to become an absolute inner necessity for him throughout his later life…executed in a vital, expressive manner unique in the realm of ‘animal portraiture’, his paintings captured the soul of the animal while at the same time reflecting powerful archetypes within the psyche of man.  The resulting body of over two thousand paintings firmly established Jenny as a fine artist with numerous exhibits throughout Europe and as far afield as Argentina.”

Early in life Hans study of Anthroposophy, a spiritual science taught by Rudolph Steiner, began.  He proved a good student and began giving lectures before he even finished medical school.  “After completing his doctorate eh taught science at the Rudolf Steiner School in Zurich for four years before beginning his medical practice.”  This also allowed him time to experiment with and lecture on the topics of Cymatics.  “Dr. Jenny would frequently begin his lectures stating that he hoped that his research into Cymatics would open the eyes of others to the underlying periodic  phenomena in nature, which he so clearly perceived…The outer form of things, their skin or surface appearance, proved no boundary for his insightful mind and penetrating gaze.  Much like the Cymatics experiments brought to light underlying principles of nature, Jenny’s indefatigable spirit of inquiry, and unparalleled powers of perception revealed his ardent desire to now, to understand, to feel and be at one with the essence of life, a force which he felt deeply within.”

Clearly Dr. Jenny was a remarkable and amazing man.  Click here for a deeper look at his work in Cymatics.  Dr. John Beaulieu states, “Dr. Jenny’s writings are pure “left brain” science.  He sets forth a thorough phenomenological study of vibration befitting an accomplished physicist and systems researcher.  His cymatic writings are embedded in rigor and clarity and supported by exacting methodology and procedure.  He is constantly seeking to observe the integrity of the whole, and to document its behavior through phenomenological categories.”

Dr. Jenny observed three fundamental principles at work regarding vibration.  Dr. Jenny wrote, “Since the various aspects of these phenomena are due to vibration, we are confronted with a spectrum which reveals a patterned, figurative formation at one pole and kinetic-dynamic processes at the other, the whole being generated and sustained by its essential periodicity.”  These three properties: periodicity, dynamic movement and steady-state form he regarded as the “Triadic Nature of Vibration”.

“The three fields,” Jenny wrote, “the periodic as the fundamental field with the two poles of figure and dynamic, invariably appear as one.  They are inconceivable without each other.  It is quite out of the question to take away the one or the other; nothing can be abstracted without the whole ceasing to exist.  We cannot therefore number them one, two, three, but can only say they are threefold in appearance and yet unitary; that they appear as one and yet are threefold.”

This three-fold nature of vibration relates to the structure of the universe, and all that’s in it, in profound ways.  We are living in a dynamic, steady-state universe in which everything oscillates.  These oscillations are the basis of the formation of matter itself.  This includes everything from the scale of the photon up to the structure of large-scale galactic clustering and everything in between.  So once again, in our universe as a whole, (which is discussed abundantly throughout Cosmic Core) we have the three-fold nature of: periodicity or oscillation, dynamic and continual movement, and steady-state form.  These are principles of vibration seen in Cymatics and these are principles of creation seen throughout the Universe.  In our daily lives we usually can only see the static aspect of the form.  This can lead to the assumption that the form is “solid” when in fact it is not.  Everything is constantly in flux and the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

As Dr. Jenny wrote, “Look at the whole and you will come to new understanding.  Let these cymatic experiments inspire your imagination to deeper insights into the universal principles of Nature.”  Or, as Dr. Beaulieu tells us, “Systems Theory unites science and art in a quest for holistic vision.  It is a discipline where objectivity and intuition meet, for one cannot see the whole without this kind of vision.  In the vibrational field it can be shown that every part is, in the true sense, implicated in the whole… [Furthermore] Cymatics, from its widest purview, ultimately teaches us that we are limitless beings with immense creative and healing powers.”