Jill Purce

Facebook, Instagram

Jill Purce pioneered the international sound healing movement in the 1970’s through her rediscovery of ancient vocal techniques, the teaching of overtone chanting, the power of group chant, and the spiritual potential of the voice as a magical instrument for healing and meditation. She pioneered the practice of healing ancestral traumas with her Healing Family and Ancestor and Resonant Family Constellations, and activated the mandala as a living practice with her extended Mandala ceremonies.

Her 1974 book The Mystic Spiral, Journey of the Soul was a seminal influence. The Bishop of California describes her contribution to the 1990’s installation of the labyrinths in Grace Cathedral, San Francisco "She helped inspire the birth of the modern labyrinth movement. Jill’s groundbreaking work with the labyrinth was inspiring, informative and important…it couldn’t have been done without her work.”

After working at Kings College London, working with Maurice Wilkins (Nobel prize for DNA), she lived and worked in the early ’70’s with German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, exploring the spiritual dimension of music. She learned overtone chanting in the Himalayas with the chant master of the Gyutö Tibetan Monastery. Jill has been following the philosophy and practice of Dzogchen since 1978, when she started working with the Tibetan Lama, Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche. She lectures and conducts workshops internationally, especially The Healing Voice, and has taught the English National Opera and The English Shakespeare Company, as well as teaching in hospitals, schools, monastic communities, and businesses. In the last 25 years she pioneered her workshops, Healing the Family and Ancestors, a unique combination of Family constellations, chant and ceremony.

Her recordings include Overtone Chanting Meditations and The Healing Voice. She lives in London with her husband, the biologist Rupert Sheldrake and their two sons the biologist and author Merlin Sheldrake and the musician Cosmo Sheldrake.