Guy Spiro: Marianne, I always like to start by asking how did you start and what was the path you took to the work that you do?

Marian McNair: I was given a book when I was sixteen on the Hunza Yoga way of life and longevity, and I was fascinated with the yogis and how they could live past 100 to 120 years of age. I’d been doing yoga and that led me to all sorts of other things. Along with all of my reading and exploring breathwork, I’ve been a part of several different spiritual groups. I worked with the Ramtha School of Enlightenment for four or five years. I’m with a group out of Cyprus called Erevna, Researchers of the Truth, which is a Christian mystical group. As part of that, I’ve visited the Holy Land and had amazing mystical experiences in the tomb of the Virgin Mary and the whole Holy Land experience was very fascinating. I’ve also gone to Brazil a few times and worked at the Casa de Dom Ignacio in Abadiania, Brazil, which people know as the place where John of God works. That has been an amazing thing in my life for healing and understanding how all of that works. Mediumship is really a beautiful, beautiful thing. So I’ve been there a few times and they really heal with love. And that’s what it all comes down to ... releasing layers of yourself and transforming yourself. I would say that it’s been my own personal journey to do that and to understand myself through forgiveness and love that’s brought me to the place I am today.

GS: How would you describe what you do in your healing work?

MM: I would describe it as using my voice and the crystal bowls as a vehicle to get to that meditative state and hook up to the other person and feel what they feel. Through visions, I see what really is going on and what has to be done. But it’s through soothing and loving that I come to my understandings of people, and using sound to go into the person, to actually go into their cells, to provide energy and strength, all of the things that we’re looking for, peace and calmness. It’s really through that peace and tranquility that we can heal. That’s what I’ve seen in my life.

GS: You use the word empathy. You’re able to feel what’s going on in somebody else’s body?

MM: Yes, to a certain degree, that’s true. I’m not going to claim anything as far as that goes, it depends on the person that I’m working with. Sometimes I see visions from their past. Sometimes maybe a Native American voice comes through. It really depends on the person. It’s hard to describe, but it’s the voice—the thing that is healing and feeling goes through my heart and that’s my understanding. I wish I could communicate it more clearly in words. I might see something, but it’s actually a feeling, and the voice comes out a certain way, maybe the voice comes out as tears, or maybe the voice comes out as a deep resonant voice of power. It’s whatever the person really needs.

GS: When you say the voice, you mean your speaking and singing voice.

MM: Yes. It’s my voice, but it’s whatever is coming through me.

GS: Talk a little more about the process itself, you sing to people.

MM: I sing and play the crystal bowls. I have more than an octave of bowls when I work with the person one on one. The person is lying on my massage table and they receive the sounds and I have the bowls set up around them on the floor. By toning and chanting with these different frequencies, these different sounds, the person comes back into balance. We all have our blueprint and perhaps our manifestation gets a little off, through disease or thoughts, or something going on in our life, our lessons that we’re learning ... and by attuning them with the bowls and the voice, the person is able to come back into balance, through these frequencies, through these wave forms. I tune into the person or group, and I do a lot of groups, before I have them come to me and I feel what they need, or several things that they need.

GS: It gets to be hard to put into words.

MM: I think I’m saying less rather than more.

GS: What do you want to communicate to our readers?

MM: Whatever anybody’s gift is for being able to help other people, because this is about helping people, my particular way of doing it is through sound. Some people are not able to relax and go deep enough to where they can really relax and calm down. What I do is like a mother singing to a child. I hope that I am able to have the sound, to be soothing enough so they relax and they can let go of some of the layers that are blocking them and preventing them from being who they really are. That’s really what I’m doing, and it’s all through sound. Our earliest sounds come from when we’re inside the womb, our mother talking to us. You can feel that your mother or a pregnant woman is walking around happy and joyous, the baby is feeling and hearing that. What I’m bringing to people is the same kind of maternal way to resonate with a person so they feel better and let go of layers.

GS: Is there anything else you’d like to communicate?

MM: The power of chanting is an amazing thing. In the late ’60s there was a doctor named Alfred Tomatis, a pioneer in Applied Psychology. He investigated a Benedictine monastery in southern France where the monks’ chanting and diet routines were altered and seventy monks became very depressed. They had a new abbot who told them that they needed to stop chanting and they had fallen into depression. Dr. Tomatis started working with them, they started chanting again, and became better. They had more energy for their daily tasks, more vitality. When you sing, and this is the whole thing about singing, since I’ve been a singer forever, you are joyful. You can’t sing unhappy, unless of course, you’re singing the blues ... but even with the blues there’s an element of happiness. This is what happened with these monks, so it’s actually well documented what the power of voice and song does for people. It’s a very ancient art. Sound healing was used in ancient Egypt, Athens, Greece, Rome, India, and Tibet. A lot of other cultures also know the importance of song and music. It’s well documented by Don Campbell. It’s amazing that we know so much more now, we’re really understanding it in a different way. This is what I’m doing, bringing the sounds to be able to heal. I’ve been volunteering at the Cancer Wellness Center for about nine years. I work with cancer patients. There is a Doctor Mitchell Gainer, a medical oncologist at the Strang Cornell Cancer Prevention Center at New York Hospital, who wrote a book a few years ago on the sounds of healing, and he works with crystal bowls. So even the mainstream medical community is becoming more open to understanding and using the power of sound.

GS: You’re doing individual healings?

MM: People come to my house and that’s where I do my work, in my healing room.

GS: And you’re also teaching.

MM: Yes, I teach many things. I have an MFA and a Masters in Education, so I’ve been a teacher for a long time.

GS: Talk about what you’re teaching people to be able to do.

MM: Well, I teach many different things. Musically, I teach guitar and voice. Along these lines, what I like to do when I do a workshop, is have them be able to use the sound in their own lives, and if they want to learn more about doing this and chanting, I’m very open to teaching that as well.

GS: Do you have any workshops coming up in the next couple months?

MM: Yes, a workshop in May and one in June in Evanston. On my website, marianmcnair.com, I have a whole list of things.

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