When a plot involves Rockefeller, Nazis, pharmaceutical executives, and oboe players, it has to be good. Not good history, science, or music theory, but good something, perhaps good unintentional satire.

In September 1939, the British Standards Institute decreed that the note of A above Middle C would vibrate at 440 cycles per second. With this, 440 Hz became the standard tuning frequency for orchestras, musicians, and instruments. This seems innocuous, but add some Red Herrings, bad acoustic science, and a dash of pareidolia, and one finds something far different. For Leonard Horowitz, L.C. Vincent, and others in the Sound Healing Movement, this frequency yields discordant and destructive results. This happens, Horowitz tells us, because “matter is trying unsuccessfully to organize around these vibrations.” Horowitz, meanwhile, is trying unsuccessfully to organize a scientific-sounding theory around New Age terms.

In the glorious days of yore, Sound Healers assure us, mankind was blessed with sacred symmetrical vibrations. But for the last 75 years, we have been cursed with a tuning frequency that has caused destruction and illness. Moreover, these notorious notes suppress spirituality, intuition, and creativity. The standards were changed the same month that the most destructive war in history was launched, what more proof is needed?

Vincent ties this together with the best Affirmation of the Consequent I’ve ever come across: “The damage this artificial tuning has produced indicates the motivation behind its promotion.”

The British Standards Institute must share the blame, however. Vincent writes that J.D. Rockefeller, the Third Reich, the Illuminati, chemical companies, and bankers conspired to “impose this artificial tuning standard for the purpose of disrupting society, creating chaos, and fostering hostility, disease and war.” Before the frequency standards change, everything was rosy, other than piffling exceptions like World War I and global influenza.

Horowitz, meanwhile, claims that listening to music at 440 Hz will cause “Chakras above the heart to be stimulated, suppressing the heart-mind intuition and creativity.” This leads to disease and war, which benefits drug companies. But Horowitz does more than caution, he gives us the solution: Buy his products.

He competes with other purveyors for which Hz to use and for which has the best irrelevant ancient authority. Cures are guaranteed, whether one needs help for tendons or tension. Other benefits include expanded consciousness, DNA repair, brainwave alteration, and tapping into the Universal Love Constant. Horowitz asserts that, “All healing occurs from sonic waves or vibrations.” People are tossing away their money on Tylenol, surgery, and chemotherapy, when all they need is a good bass line.

Alan Howarth prefers 444 Hz, owing to his interpretation of ancient Egyptian planetary numerology and scales deduced from Pythagorean Number Theory. Wes Bateman goes with 424 Hz, based on some stuff found in the Pyramids and in some antiquated Mexican works. For Brian Collins, 432 Hz is the magic number because of what Ancient Egyptians and Greeks said.

Horowitz blows these neophytes out of the water with the ultimate ancient authority, the God of Abraham. He (Horowitz, not God) reports that 528 Hz provides the “good vibrations that the plant kingdom broadcasts in its greenish-yellow display, and is remedial to emotional distress and social aggression.”

Also, we learn that, “The world began when the Creator’s word acted on water and sound frequencies based on physics and mathematics were applied to it.” Horowitz has tapped into this power with his Water Resonator, otherwise known as a sticker that consumers slap onto a water jug. Doing this will “display the precise sound frequencies of creation and restore nature’s resonance energy and electromagnetic purity of water.” His ideas appeal to those seeking spirituality or refuge from the Laws of Nature.

Horowitz’s reasons for championing 528 Hz includes:
5+2+8=15; 1+5+6; 6 is sacred.
A mile is 5,280 feet
528 Terahertz is green
The golden ratio symbol is the first letter in the Greek word for love.
Room 528 was featured prominently in the movie Inception.

Since humans, who are about two-thirds water, can benefit, just imagine how much the ocean has to gain from this music. According to humansarefree.com, 528 Hz music was played toward the Gulf of Mexico after the BP oil spill, and the waters were clean the next day. Those responsible for this test claim it was corroborated by the Analytical Chemical Testing Laboratory in Alabama. However, the lab only attested to numbers claimed, it did not confirm that it was the result of subjecting saltwater to pulsating electronica.

The Sound Healing Movement appeals mostly to people who tend toward the mystic, but it makes attempts to reel in the more scientifically minded as well. Consider this doozy from altered-states.com: “Everything is in a constant state of vibration, and the most elemental state of vibration is sound. Everything has an optimum range of vibration, called resonance. One way to use sound to heal the body is to recognize that every organ and cell absorbs and emits sound, and has a particular optimum resonate frequency.” This spiel starts by referencing legitimate phenomenon, such as vibration, sound, range, and resonance. It then throws out terms particular to anatomy, like organ and cells. It then ties everything together with a pair of vivid verbs: absorbs and emits. The paragraph might sound impressive, but it never says anything coherent, never makes a testable claim, and offers no evidence.

Going back to 440 Hz, neither Horowitz nor Vincent ever explain how the conspirators knew it would have this cruel power. Nevertheless, Vincent claims the nefarious nature of 440Hz has been empirically proven. However, instead of citing studies bolstering this notion, he contradicts himself in his conclusion by writing, “I do not know if anyone can prove a direct causal link between a specific frequency tuning system with aggression, disassociation, paranoia and violence.” He continues, “Yet intuitively, I think my sources are correct.” It would be rather accommodating to concede him that point. So In the interest of finding better evidence, I’ll carry out a study.

First, I’ll put on some 528 Hz music. Many such videos are available on youtube.

First impression: The sound is very similar to hearing test, except the noise is more detectable and steady. This must mean 528 Hz has already improved my hearing.

Ten minutes in: Listening to this all day would make me want to throttle someone. So 528 Hz is helping me improve my patience and anger management.

Now, onto some 440 Hz music. This is proving difficult to find. Every selection that points out that it is 440 Hz is being done so to warn of its evil, or is offering to convert it to another frequency. OK, here we go. I have found Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5 in A.

I found it pleasing, relaxing, and moving. And I’m not hungry, so it passed the war and famine tests. It could be giving me Alzheimer’s, but we’ll need another 30 years or so to complete that portion of the study.

Finally, I listened to “Train Kept a’ Rollin.’” This wasn’t trying to prove anything, I just wanted to hear it.