“When Moses said, “Give ear, ye heavens, and I will speak,” all worlds were shaken. A voice came forth and said, “Moses, why dost thou shake the world, being but a mortal?” He replied, “Because I will call on the name of the Lord.” THE ZOHAR
“Recent scientific advances point to what sages knew thousands of years ago: sound holds the key to the mysteries of the universe. Sound can create matter and change matter. And it can create spiritual and material changes in our lives. We know that sound can be a dramatic, destructive force—a high-pitched note can shatter a wineglass, a sonic boom can crack plaster, a gunshot can set off an avalanche. But sound is also a constructive force, as doctors and health practitioners are discovering every day.
Ultrasound (high-pitched sound waves) is used for everything from cleaning wounds to diagnosing tumors to pulverizing kidney stones. Someday it may even be used to inject drugs into the body, making needles obsolete.
Scientists are now researching sound’s impact on the brain. Certain kinds of classical music, by composers like Bach, Mozart and Beethoven, have a range of positive effects, including temporarily raising IQ, expanding memory and speeding up learning. Alternative medical practitioners are experimenting with using specific tones to heal the organs. Some researchers have documented that prayer heals the body. One study with a group of Benedictine monks showed that their Gregorian chants literally energized their bodies. Spoken prayer is at the heart of the world’s religions East and West, whether as the Jewish Shema and Amidah, the Christian Our Father, the Muslim Shahadah, the Hindu Gayatri or the Buddhist Om Mani Padme Hum. The Zohar emphasizes that prayer is not effective unless it is spoken aloud:
“Whatever a man thinks or whatever he meditates in his heart cannot be realized in fact until he enunciates it with his lips.... And the word that he enunciates cleaves the air and goes up and flies through the world. And a sound is produced from it. The winged creatures take this sound up to the king, and it enters his ears.... Therefore, every prayer and petition that man wishes to lay before the Holy One, blessed be He, must be enunciated in words by the lips, because if he does not enunciate them his prayer is no prayer, and his petition is no petition.”
“Aryeh Kaplan points out that “in later Kabbalistic schools, it appears that biblical verses or selections from the Talmud or Zohar would be used as mantras.” For example, in the famed Palestinian community of Safed, Kabbalists would repeat a verse from the Bible like a mantra. Joseph Caro and his followers recited over and over certain sections of the Mishnah, the oldest portion of the Talmud. Isaac Luria may have used a similar technique with the Zohar. Kaplan says that the meditators would gain deep insights into the meaning of these sacred works by repeating their words this way.”
The prayer technique known today as the Science of the Spoken Word is a method of accessing the power of God that combines prayers, mantras, affirmations and visualizations with what are called “dynamic decrees.” Like prayers, decrees are spoken petitions to God. But more than that, they are a command for the will of God to be manifest. When we decree, we are scientifically commanding God’s light to enter our world for alchemical change. We are directing God to send his light and his angels into action for personal and world transformation.”
“Prayer, meditation and decrees are all ways of connecting with God and your own Higher Self, and there is a time and place to practice each type of devotion. But no matter what spiritual path you follow, you can benefit from adding decrees to your devotions because decrees are the most powerful and effective of all applications to God. When you decree, you are entering into a partnership with God. As the LORD said to Job, “Thou shalt make thy prayer unto him [the Almighty], and he shall hear thee.... Thou shalt also decree a thing, and it shall be established unto thee.” And Isaiah tells us, “Thus saith the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker, ‘Ask me of things to come concerning my sons, and concerning the work of my hands command ye me.’”[418] God is in effect telling us, “Call to me. I will answer. Command my energies flowing through the sefirot and through you and I will channel them into a constructive purpose. I will enter your world and work my works through you.” Many wonder: “Is it really necessary to ask God to help us? Isn’t he omniscient? Doesn’t he already know our problems and how to take care of them?” According to God’s laws, he and his heavenly representatives may not intervene in human affairs unless we specifically ask them to. For when God created us, he gave us free will; and he respects that free will. You can think of earth as a laboratory where God has given us the freedom to experiment and to evolve. If he hadn’t given us free will and let us experience the good and bad results of our actions, we wouldn’t be able to learn from—and grow from—the lessons of life.”
“When we wed the creative power of sound to a spiritual lifestyle that integrates the attributes of the sefirot, we have a winning combination. Together, these practices give us an exponential ability to accelerate tikkun—the restoration of our life and the world to their original divine design. There are many different ways to apply the Science of the Spoken Word to personal and planetary needs.[419] In this chapter, we will discuss two kinds of decrees that can prepare us to recite the names of God.”
Excerpt From Kabbalah: Key to Your Inner Power (Mystical Paths of the World's Religions) Elizabeth Clare Prophet This material may be protected by copyright.