Sound advice?

Advocates might claim that they have changed their lives. Sceptics say they are utterly worthless. The topic: alternative therapies.

What the average alternative therapy supporter would make of 'sound therapy', however, is anyone's guess.

An industry has developed around 'sound healing', and followers have set up an organisation to promote their cause; the imaginatively titled Sound Healers Association.

The association is currently constructing The Temple of Sacred Sound, a website which will feature 'at least 3 separate chambers where different seed sounds ('Om', 'Ah' and 'Hu') will be sounded 24/7.'

In addition, the group claims that 'you'll be able to go into one of these chambers and project intentionalised sound for Planetary Peace while being able to hear yourself and others throughout the world.'

What all this means, and how it might work, is somewhat vague. UK newspaper The Guardian recently reported that 'there is anecdotal evidence of whale music stopping babies crying, that the sound has soothed foetuses, women in childbirth and people who are dying'

One popular practitioner of sound healing uses two tuning forks which 'balance out the left and right hemispheres of the brain' as well as 'balancing the auric field and the energetic levels of the body', and claims that sound healing methods can make headaches disappear, and are effective against cancer.

Sounds unlikely to me ..