Question:
I would like to know whether you could give me some information about the implications that rock music can have on a young person. I am referring to heavy rock music. Thank you very much. Luis A. P.
Answer:
Dear Sir:
Regarding your inquiry, you may read with profit the well-documented book by Jean-Paul Règimbal, “Le Rock’n’roll” (Les Editions Saint Raphael, Québec, Canada), translated into several languages. His study is very important because he is not merely a religious (he is a Trinitarian) but is also a criminologist, specialized in criminal psychiatry.
What he says can be summed up in the sentence with which he begins his work: “No one can say that the influence of rock is healthy and positive.”
I. Historical Development of Rock
Règimbal distinguishes four historical phases in rock’n’roll. The first is its birth (around 1951–1952); Alan Freed invents the name “rock’n’roll,” an expression that “describes the movements of the human body during sexual play. It is taken from the popular slang of the American ghettos.” The second stage is the evolution toward hard and acid rock, with the integration of rock into the world of drugs; the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and the group The Who had much to do with this. The third stage is satanic rock; this phase is inaugurated by the Beatles in 1968 with the appearance of the “Devil’s White Album,” containing the following two pieces: Revolution Number One and Revolution Number Nine. For the first time in the record industry, subliminal messages will be introduced to transmit “the gospel of Satan.” The formula is successful, and from then on rock music will take the vast road of diabolical perversion; in this field one must mention the Rolling Stones, The Who, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, and Styx. The fourth phase, in the 1980s, is punk rock, whose end and philosophy are to lead listeners directly to suicide, to collective violence, and to systematic crimes. Among the most notorious groups, we mention Kiss, Ted Nugent and the mutants, Aphrodite’s Child (album 666), Rob Zombie, whose Master was Alice Cooper, and above all Marilyn Manson.
II. Subversive Aspects of Rock’n’roll
In these various pseudo-musical manifestations, the following perverted aspects can be pointed out:
1. Subliminal Messages
This concerns the transmission of a message intended to reach the listener “just below the threshold of his consciousness”; such a message escapes the ear, the eyes, and the external senses, and penetrates into the deep subconscious of the listener, who is completely defenseless against this form of aggression. The author of the subliminal message is perfectly aware of the goal he wishes to attain: a revolution in depth capable of every subversion. The listener, for his part, is entirely unaware that he is suffering this invasion of his consciousness and of his deep subconscious. Since his conscious intelligence and his will are neither on the alert nor in a condition to exercise any discernment, it is the subconscious that captures the message, decodes it, and reconstructs it. In rock’n’roll, the messages transmitted in a subliminal way have a very varied content:
a) sexual perversion in all its forms;
b) the impulse to rebellion against the established order;
c) initiation into suicide;
d) initiation into violence and homicide;
e) consecration to Satan.
2. Direct Satanic Messages
After the first wave of subliminal messages, the authors of rock began to express their satanic inspirations openly. For example, the song The God of Thunder by the group Kiss: “I was brought up by a demon, prepared to reign like ‘the one who is.’ I am the Lord of the desert. An iron man of modern times. I call upon the darkness to please me, and I command you to kneel before the god of thunder, god of Rock’n roll.” Or these lyrics by The Dead Kennedys: “God told me to skin you alive. I kill children. I like to watch them die. I kill children. I make their mothers cry. I crush them with my car. I want to hear them scream; to give them poisoned candy and ruin their Halloween.”
3. Consecration to Satan
More than ten proofs clearly establish that the great stars of rock’n’roll have consecrated themselves to Satan freely and of their own will. Règimbal mentions three irrefutable cases: that of Alice Cooper, whose real name is Vincent Fournier (his testimony is more than eloquent: “Some years ago I went to a spiritualist séance where Norman Buekley begged the spirit to make itself heard. The spirit finally manifested itself and spoke to me. It promised me and my music group glory, the domination of the world through rock music, and riches in abundance. The only thing it asked of me in exchange was that I hand over my body so that this spirit might take possession of me. In exchange for the possession of my body, I became famous throughout the whole world. To do this I took the name by which ‘he’ had identified himself at the séance. And so I am recognized worldwide. You already know that name: Alice Cooper”). The second case is that of Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones, who consecrated himself to Satan under the influence of two witches: Marianne Faithfull and Anita Pallenberg. The third case is that of Ozzy Osbourne of the group Black Sabbath, who has confessed that he has never composed a song without being in a state of trance.
Bearing this in mind, it is not astonishing that a demonic influence makes itself felt among the audience under the forms that follow:
– Irritability
– The spirit of rebellion
– Obscene language
– Blasphemous propositions
– Suicidal tendencies
III. Harms of Rock
1. Physical Harms
Numerous studies have been undertaken to evaluate the various effects of rock music, in addition to serious traumas of the ears, sight, spinal column, endocrine system, and nervous system of the listeners assiduously devoted to this type of music. Bob Larson and a medical team from Cleveland have revealed several convincing symptoms in more than 200 patients.
This music can have astonishing physical effects and consequences: changes in the pulse and the respiration, an increased secretion of the endocrine glands, in particular the pituitary gland, which regulates the vital processes in the organism. When the music grows louder the larynx contracts; when it lowers it relaxes.
The basal metabolism and the percentage of sugar in the blood are modified over the course of the listening. One may then think of “playing” with the human organism as one plays a musical instrument, and in fact certain composers of music set out to manipulate the brain by provoking a short circuit in the conscious faculties, just as drugs do. The predominant rite of rock and of pop first conditions the body and then stimulates certain hormonal functions of the endocrine system.
These effects increase with the intensity of the music. Beyond 80 decibels the effect is unpleasant; above 90 it becomes harmful.
Now then, at rock concerts, from 106 to 108 decibels have been measured in the center of the hall and 120 near the orchestra; specialists also discover in young people hearing problems proper to adults over 50 years of age, as well as a disquieting increase in cardiovascular diseases or problems of balance.
As for sight, the need for special lighting and the use of laser beams have produced irreversible damage to the eyes of some participants. Professor Paul Zenier, of Purdue University, explains: “certain discotheques are equipped with laser effects. If the beam penetrates the eye it can produce a burn on the retina, with the formation of a blind and permanent spot. Moreover, the beams of animated light that appear to the rhythm of the music produce vertigo, nausea, and hallucinatory phenomena.”
On the sexual plane, the medical team of Bob Larson affirms categorically: “The low-frequency vibrations, due to the amplification of the bass guitar, to which is added the repetitive effect of the beat, produce a considerable effect upon the cerebrospinal fluid. In turn, this fluid directly affects the pituitary gland, which regulates the secretion of hormones. The overall result is an imbalance of the sexual and adrenal hormones, as well as a radical change in the rate of insulin in the blood, so that the various control functions of the moral inhibitions fall below what is tolerable or are completely neutralized.”
2. Psychological Harms
If the physiological effects are so grave, still more so are the psychological effects. There is no one who submits himself with impunity, for a prolonged time, to the depersonalizing influence of rock without suffering deep affective psychological traumas. It suffices for us to enumerate ten that recur almost always in the medical and psychiatric analyses of the doctors Mc Raferty, Gramby Bline, Barnard Saibel, Walter Woight, as well as Frank Garlock, Tom Allen, and various other works:
1. Modification of the emotive reactions, ranging from frustration to uncontrollable violence.
2. Loss of control, both conscious and reflex, of the capacities for concentration.
3. A considerable diminution of the will’s control over the subconscious impulses.
4. A neuro-sensory overexcitation that produces euphoria, suggestibility, hysteria, and even hallucination.
5. Serious disorders of the memory, of the cerebral functions, and of the neuro-muscular coordination.
6. A hypnotic or cataleptic state that turns the person into a kind of zombie or robot.
7. A depressive state ranging from neurosis to psychosis, above all when music and drugs are combined.
8. Suicidal and homicidal tendencies increased by the daily and prolonged listening to rock music.
9. Self-mutilation, self-immolation, and self-punishment, above all in the great gatherings.
10. Irresistible impulses of destruction, of vandalism, and of the stirring up of the discontented, after concerts and festivals of rock.
3. Moral Harms of Rock
The consequences of listening to Rock music are centered on five capital themes: sex, drugs, rebellion, false religion, and diabolical influence. The intelligence, the will, and the moral conscience suffer such an assault through all the senses that their capacities for discernment and resistance diminish greatly, and are sometimes even neutralized. In this state of moral and mental confusion, the way remains completely open to the most violent release of the pent-up impulses, such as hatred, wrath, envy, vengeance, and sexuality.
Moreover, the rock stars become not only models to be imitated but also idols to be adored. This spell of an idolatrous character has had macabre consequences, such as the phenomenon of the groupies (the young women who give themselves totally to their idols to satisfy all their sexual caprices). There were suicides provoked by the death of a favorite star, and some murders, of which the most famous is that of John Lennon by his admirer Mark David Chapman.
To this one would have to add the social harms and others that rock produces. All of them may be seen at length, set forth in the work of Règimbal.
Author: Fr. Miguel Ángel Fuentes, I.V.E.
