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Paper short abstract

As part of the Sacred Sites project I interviewed people about the nature sites that they have been using as part of their animistic and spiritual practice. I'm looking at the interview data along with the acoustic measures that were done at the sites later on.

Paper long abstract

Sounds or soundscapes are often connected with the feeling of sacredness and spirituality. In animistic and spiritual practise, we sometimes use sound in nature to communicate with the unseen reality and create meanings in response to the sounds we hear.

In Sacred Sounds project I interviewed eight people of whom majority practices shamanism or uses nature as part of their spiritual practise. I was asking them about the places they felt were important to them and why this was. Many of these places mentioned in the interviews were old, well-known sites that have been used by sages and healers in the past. The historical connection was important to them, but they were constructing multi-layered meanings into the sites. After the interviews we went with the Sacred Sounds research team to measure for example if there was an echo or some other sonic phenomena present in these sites. Through these measures the sites got additional aspects that might explain some of the experiences that people had when visiting these places.

In this paper I will discuss a few of the sites that were mentioned in the interviews along with the acoustic characters that were found in the tests conducted. I propose that some of the supernatural or unusual experiences could be explained to some degree with unusual acoustics.