Sound Healing Retreat on Samui Island, Thailand by Joe Banffy of Australia:
Set up:
- Seven crystal bowls of different keys
- Participants lay on yoga mats on their backs, heads to the centre in a circle
- Presenter sits on a mat outside the circle in the middle of the seven-crystal bowls, also in a circle
The bowls are skillfully played as a symphony of vibrational sound that clearly does take you into savasana state, whereby you lose the awareness of what is around you.
In the session I attended, the bowls did the trick. There is no doubt, however, at certain times the presenter added a soprano voice as a chorus, and this detracted from the experience, as the bowls emit a totally pure sound that clearly resonates through mind and body. If the singer were gifted with a highly talented voice, it might work. However, in this case, it did not. Once the singer had ceased and the sound of the bowls was left to play alone, I did readily reach the meditative state quicker than at the beginning of the session.
Moving into that relaxed state at the beginning took a little while, as you have the awareness of other people within your proximity of personal space.
This was not the case with the Harmonic Egg. This issue did not arise — if it is even an issue at all?
The singing bowls session, however, was just as restorative as the Egg as far as relaxation goes but seemed only to be for a relaxing purpose and not a healing one.
The other distraction was the outside noise pollution that came in from the street, like cars, bikes, people walking by and laughing or talking. This pulled me out of my inner meditative state. Even raucous birds in the nearby trees made me quite aware of their presence. Once again, this kind of distraction did not occur in the Egg.
40 minutes into the crystal bowl session, a harmonium or Melodeon was introduced with voice. It really didn’t cut it. Please remember I’m writing this after my experience with the Egg and comparing the two. This was followed by a recorded keyboard and voice segment. Again, it didn’t seem to work anywhere near as successfully as the Egg.
Final Thoughts
If I was looking for sound therapy as a healing modality, I would definitely choose the Harmonic Egg over the crystal bowel session that I attended at the wellness centre on Samui Island. If It is only stress reduction and relaxation you are after, I would be happy to recommend both for this particular purpose.
However, the Egg seemed superior in being able to personalise the experience without distraction. The biggest difference between the two modalities is that the Egg has specific programs designed to cater towards individual illnesses or health problems, whereas the crystal bowl sound bath is a generalised relaxation activity that the presenter tends to say has healing benefits, but there are no specifics mentioned.