Let's get this out of the way: I don't buy into most woo-woo health stuff. I consider myself open-minded, and I'm always willing to be wrong. But I'm dubious of, say, the power of crystals to improve my energy or mood. Essential oil diffusers generally don't do anything for my anxiety except maybe increase it by giving me a headache and irritated nostrils. I can't stand fire cider. However, I don't begrudge those who do find relief or even healing in alternative practices, regardless of whatever the science of the day has to say about it. As long as all parties involved are entering into whatever openly and honestly — and no one gets hurt — I'm all for it. Which is how I ended up prone in a zero-gravity chair while a strange woman measured my aura with a giant tuning fork under the watchful eye of a mini-schnauzer mix named Li'l Spike. Katherine Quittner is the inventor of the Magnetica, a massive and odd experimental musical instrument that she uses to conduct sound healing concerts from a third-floor studio in downtown Burlington. If Saruman, the evil wizard from The Lord of the Rings, played a musical instrument, it might look something like the imposing Magnetica. From its square wooden base, 12 nine-foot-tall, curved wooden bows called "arcos" jut upward, three to a side, forming a sort of cage from which Quittner conjures an array of soothing sounds. Each arco is strung with a heavy-gauge sitar string that Quittner can pluck, hammer or bow to achieve deep, resonant tones. In the center of the machine is a console outfitted with Tibetan singing bowls, a tiny wind-up music box, wind chimes, crystals and other assorted noisemakers. There's also an electronic keyboard, through which Quittner can play melodic lines, chords and a variety of preprogrammed beats. While the Magnetica is designed to be transported, setup and breakdown are unwieldy and long processes. It's easier for interested parties to come to Quittner than the other way around, so since May she's hosted a few monthlong series of concerts at the Burlington space to introduce Vermonters to the Magnetica. Her October run ends this Saturday, October 26. If you're unfamiliar with sound healing, it's pretty much what it, ahem, sounds like. The idea is that sonic vibrations, whether from music, singing bowls, tuning forks or more conventional instruments, can be applied…