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Step inside the World of THE ORPHEUS PROJECT
INTRODUCING THE ORPHEUS PROJECT by Alain Amouyal, CEO at The Orpheus Institute Dominique Julliard, Co-founder Chantal Desmoulins, Director of Research
Dr Alain Amouyal is a composer, a writer, a visual artist and the originator of The Orpheus Project. He was trained and practicing for over 30 years as a dental surgeon (DDS diploma from the Aix-Marseille II University, France). He began his musical journey as a guitarist and bassist in a rock band at age thirteen. He started improvising on the organ at age twenty-three, and followed with formal studies in ear-training and music theory. Chantal Desmoulins holds a DEA (advanced diploma equivalent to six years of post-graduate study) from The Center for Research of the Imaginary (Centre de recherche sur l'imaginaire – CRI, Stendhal University - Grenoble 3, France), where she focused her research on the study of the organized system of images. Dominique [our dearly departed] holded a Diploma in Architecture of the Federal Polytechnic School in Zürich. He acted as an independent architect for 30 years in Geneva (Switzerland). He designed with Alain Amouyal the first sketches for The Orpheus Center and directed the Swiss team of architects, civil engineers, and consultants. He assisted Alain Amouyal in the optimization and completion of the design when the latter realized the entire 3D concept. Since 1981, in addition to our regular job, we developed collaboratively a research in music-therapy, which was to become the Catharsis Technique and the Catharsis Application Program (www.planet-cap.com), a highly original approach to the liberating catharsis triggered by listening to certain of Alain's compositions under precise, controlled conditions. Directed by Dr. David Feldman, an American neurobiologist, audio-psycho-phonologist and conductor, and confirmed by the experiments conducted by Dr. J. Verdeau-Paillès, world renowned neuro-psychiatrist and music-therapist, and Dr Lucien Duclaud, director of a psychiatric Clinic, the method developed into a comprehensive therapeutic tool which is used for decades by many therapists all around the world. This innovative psycho-musical technique facilitates the emergence of repressed past experiences and the healing of emotional wounds. And now, after decades of planning, work and research, the stage is set to move forward with creating the ultimate setting for the Catharsis Application Program — and many other innovative therapies — at the world-class Orpheus Center, a multi-dimensional therapeutic, recreational and arts complex unlike anything the world has ever seen. Meet The Orpheus Project! The Orpheus Project has The Orpheus Experience at its heart: a wide-ranging, four-part musical multimedia staged spectacle designed to evoke deep- seated emotions, triggering a liberating catharsis that, when released and explored under controlled conditions, ultimately heals the wounded psyche.
Our intention for this spectacular site, envisioned as an international venue that blends the arts, medicine, and technology, is to capture the interest and imagination of people of all age groups and from all over the globe. When we presented Alain's vision, a few years ago in Los Angeles - inspired by the Asklepeian Healing - we described the heart of the project as follows: "The idea for the Orpheus Project sprang from the vision of a close circle of friends who believe that - when created and produced with great care - Great Staged Spectacles can: • Contribute to the exploration of the inner workings of human drama • Show the beauty of the universal human adventure • Raise spectator consciousness • Guide individuals in their search for meaning • Reveal the ability of humans to excel and transform themselves" At the time, we didn't know that a famous writer and politician, a visionary also, had expressed himself during an interview about contemporary art: "I think that... it will be above all the one who will be able to give meaning to the human condition, that is, both to show the human tragedy but also to bring back the beautiful to give the idea that humanity can surpass itself..." — Jacques Attali, L'art contemporain-Public Sénat - Palais de Tokyo – Conversation d’avenir — www.publicsenat.fr) To give meaning to the human condition... What a beautiful mission, indeed! Especially if we know that, in the past, the Greeks used art, tragedy and music in Ancient Asclepian as a means of triggering catharsis in the spectator; the emotions expressed during large/major shows (the exceptional theatre of Epidauros had 14,000 seats!) were the starting point for a medicine that took into account the body and the soul and that some call "sacred". Dr. Jean Houston wrote, in his magnificent book, "Search for the Beloved"; "In taking this journey through the Asclepian at Epidaurus, you have sacred psychology in one of its finest and fullest forms, for this ancient Asclepian was a complex of centers where art, mystery, and science met in ways that have yet to be matched in the modern world." Because, not only does this medicine take into account the body and mind, but it also seeks to understand the meaning of disease (Dis-ease) when, unfortunately, it affects one of us. Sacred medicine has been superbly defined by other researchers of the absolute, such as Dr. Edward Tick, who described, in a way that was unexpected to me, my vision of the Orpheus Center in the chapter "The Future of Asklepeian Medicine", in his remarkable book, "The Practice of Dream Healing" — Bringing Ancient Greek Mysteries into Modern Medicine, a book that I discovered long after I developed my concept: "… Imagine a hospital that is truly a sanctuary from the modern world and its stresses: A place where beauty, quiet, quality food, massages, healing baths, meditation, and strolls through beautiful surroundings are routinely available. A place where music and theater are performed. A place where patients who practice within a specific spiritual tradition are encouraged to surround themselves with its images, music, and rituals. A place where patients are so rested and nurtured that they relax their defenses, loosen their ego boundaries, and become amenable to spiritual as well as scientific healing. In this hospital, patients who wish to dream quest as part of their healing process are given the opportunity to do so. They are offered guidance and support, a safe and sacred environment where dream incubation takes place, and the opportunity to discuss their dreams with a trained professional who helps them to understand and interpret a dream's symbolism and message. A hospital such as we are imagining is not an illness repair factory but a medico-spiritual sanctuary. Physicians who practice there are trained in the art of healing the soul as well as repairing the body. They understand that illness expresses the soul's condition and acknowledge that the sacred is everywhere and that encouraging patients to be in relationship with the sacred furthers their healing. They understand as well that the use of radical ritual as an adjunct to conventional healing positively impacts the outcome of a treatment procedure and are skilled in creating and conducting them." Of course things have changed... Medicine is capable of technical feats. That is undeniable. But it sometimes forgets that man is not only a sophisticated machine that can be fragmented, dissected, especially in the standard of institutionalized medical care. As Jane Cicchetti so aptly puts it: "Without a doubt, rationalism has made a huge contribution to the advancement of medicine. Rationalism has not, however, developed techniques that go to the core of the problem. lt cannot cure chronic disease; rather, it treats symptoms of the disease, which often reappear as deeper and more insidious problems…" — Jane Cicchetti, Dreams, Symbols & Homeopathy Edward Tick puts it as well: "Scientific medicine can do wonders, especially in response to trauma and other emergencies and in the control and healing of infectious diseases. It is also highly successful at relieving pain and in helping to manage chronic conditions. However, scientific medicine is limited in its ability to treat the psychosomatic conditions that account for so much modern illness. All too often, patients who present subclinical symptomatology get lost in a labyrinth of tests and specialists and find very little help for what ails them… The job of sacred medicine is to tell for what purpose a condition has occurred and what it means. In other words, the task of sacred medicine is to unfold and reveal the Larger matrix of which a particular illness is a part. We might argue that understanding the purpose and meaning of an illness is rightly the job of the psychiatrist, psychologist, or minister, and that patients can seek such insight if they choose. However, sacred medicine holds that responding to an illness scientifically without understanding its meaning can be dangerous or destructive. Illnesses are inherently, as Plutarch reminds us, signs of something. When we disguise or supress symptoms, or when we treat a physical condition without attending to its meaning and message, we deny the value of the sign. Functional health may be restored, but nothing has changed, nothing has been learned, no growth has been occasioned, no rebirth has occurred. Moreover, a sign suppressed or treated without deeper understanding often resurfaces as another sign, even as another catastrophe or illness." — Eward Tick, The Practice of Dream Healing So here is the direction we have taken in the Orpheus Center, that of psychosomatic medicine which deals with chronic diseases, "chronic pain" and which concerns all ages of life. Psychoanalysts, then psychologists and homeopathy in the 19th century placed the mind and its emotions as the main source of pathologies and therefore as a healing space with the HERING law "healing is obtained by treating and suppressing symptoms from top to bottom." It is precisely in this perspective that the Orpheus Project is situated: a global medicine center that takes into account the physical, psychological and spiritual, in the same way Ancient Greece practiced it, transcending the duality between science and the sacred. Enjoy your visit!

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