Jill Purce (www.healingvoice.com)
I wrote The Mystic Spiral in 1973 - a book that has become increasingly relevant as science unwinds us in spirals of fractility. I wrote it to look at the dynamics of the soul's movement. Amongst other things, this book stimulated the contemporary interest in the labyrinth as a contemplative activity.
As Series Editor of over 30 books "Art and Imagination" with Thames and Hudson, I explored - from the early 1970's - a way of looking at images, so that, rather than mere migrating decorative patterns , or even profound symbols of something else, they were revealed as big themes which ask fundamental questions of the nature of universal design.
I have been a 35+ yearlong practitioner of Dzogchen - within Tibetan Buddhism.
In the mid seventies, after having lived and worked in Germany with Karlheinz Stockhausen for several years, I pioneered the introduction and teaching of overtone chanting to the West, (originally found in central Asia (Tibet, Mongolia, Tuva (Siberia)) in workshops I call The Healing Voice. In the intervening years I have pioneered and introduced and taught voice as a group meditative and healing practice all over the world to non-singers and professionals alike, as well as to therapists and anyone else who wanted to join me in re-enchanting the disenchanted (no longer made magical by chanting) world. My purpose is to engender vivified sonorous communities. Over the years I developed and taught many other vocal and spiritual practices.
Since 16 years I have also been giving workshops "Healing the Family and Ancestors" a profound healing method for healing ancestral lines and family patterns, using sound with family constellations. Other activities involve intense week-long Shamano-Buddhist vocally sonorous life changing ceremonies.
My current extended retreats bring together many of my earlier separate activities. Ancient dynamic spirallic patterns of consciousness, shamanic and trance states and extended vocal practices, have now come together as sustained choreographic movements for the soul.
Here is a more official biography
Jill Purce- British musician, writer and tonal chanter who introduced the use of voice and chant to heal in the West. From 1970 onwards she worked with many spiritual teachers, as well as American Indians, Tibetan Lamas and Shamans from different traditions. In the early '70's she worked and travelled with the German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen. Jill is the author of The Mystic Spiral 1974. She is translated into more than 10 languages and is a is an internationally sought after speaker and workshop presenter, teaching in universities, colleges, schools, hospitals, monastic communities, international conferences and centres and in the corporate sector, and has appeared on numerous TV and radio programmes worldwide. She has taught the Healing voice, Re-Enchanting the World and Healing the Family and Ancestors and pioneered both the sound healing movement and the Family and Ancestral Healing Movement and introduced overtone chanting from Tibet and Central Asia throughout the world for forty years. She has worked extensively with nuns and monks in a number of enclosed Christian Monastic Communities who sing Gregorian chant, to help them find ways to re-invigorate and rediscover the meditative power of chant. She has taught the English Shakespeare company and at English National Opera and leads the search for the lost voice. She lives in London with her husband, the biologist Rupert Sheldrake and their two sons.
Please contact Jill directly for interviews at info@healingvoice.com or call her from outside the UK call +44 20 7435 2467 www.healingvoice.com
JILL PURCE pioneered the international sound healing movement through her rediscovery of ancient vocal techniques, the power of group chant, and the spiritual potential of the voice as a magical instrument for healing and meditation. Through her workshops, Inner Sound and Voice; The Healing Voice; Re-enchanting the World; and Ritual and Resonance- Healing the Family, she has taught internationally for almost thirty years, teaching diverse forms of sacred chant, and especially overtone chanting .She is the author of "The Mystic Spiral: journey of the Soul" 1974, a book about the evolution of consciousness in spiritual traditions, art and psychology. For fifteen years as General Editor of "Art and Imagination" she produced over thirty books on Sacred Traditions, Art and Cosmology, After receiving an Honours degree in Fine Art, she was awarded a Leverhulme Research Fellowship in King's College Biophysics Department, University of London, where she initiated a dialogue between science and mysticism with Maurice Wilkins (Nobel prize for DNA).Between 1971-4 she worked in Germany with the composer Karlheinz Stockhausen investigating the spiritual dimension of music. Interested in the magical properties of the voice, she learnt overtone chanting( producing chords or simultaneous notes octaves apart). The latter she studied in the Himalayas with the chantmaster of the Gyutö Tibetan Monastery and Tantric College. She has been following the philosophy and practice of Dzogchen since 1978, when she first met the Tibetan Lama, Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche. She has worked with American Indians and Shamans from different traditions. Some of her published articles include: Patterns of Growth in Nature and Consciousness; Time and the Music of Form; Creative Tension; Harmonics of Mind and Body; Sound in Mind and Body; Healing Resonance; Re-enchanting the World; The Healing Voice; Being In Tune. She stayed in India with Father Bede Griffiths, where she also taught. She worked in a number of closed Anglican communities in order to re-establish the contemplative power of chant. She has taught the English Shakespeare Company and led seminars and workshops for English National Opera. As well giving lectures and workshops all over the world she teaches in hospitals, schools, monastic communities as well as the business sector. She lives in London with her husband, the biologist Rupert Sheldrake and their two sons. www.healingvoice.com.
