Freeze Dates for Lakes Show Global Warming

Another line of evidence for global warming is the change in the winter and spring dates when bodies of water freeze and thaw, according to an article published in the journal Science. Evidence from written records compiled by researchers at the University of Wisconsin show that over the past one hundred and fifty years, major bodies of water in the northern hemisphere have frozen about nine days later and thawed nine days earlier. According to the Associated Press news release concerning this research, a shift of nine days in the freeze/thaw dates represent a rise in average temperature of about three degrees.

A significant quality of this evidence is that it is based upon direct observation, and not calculations. Written records exist concerning the freeze/thaw dates for many bodies of water, some by churches that held ceremonies at such times, or water transportation officials, or other responsible authorities.

For more information, see http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGIZ2Z6HVCC.html

Test your psychic ability online

There are many sites on the Internet where you may test your psychic ability. The A.R.E. has a test online as part of its Edgar Cayce Institute of Intuitive Studies as well as an entire intuition course online which connects you to many others.

A notable new series of online experiments are at the web site created by the parapsychologist Dean Radin, www.boundaryinstitute.org. You may browse his entire site to review the research being conducted and articles written on ESP testing and theories of psychic ability. To go directly to the online experiments, go to http://csl.lfr.org/bi/gotpsi.htm, where you will be asked to register and answer a brief questionnaire (skipping any questions you wish).

The online experiments include a card test similar to that used by J.B. Rhine in the early days of ESP testing. The remote viewing experiment asks you to describe a photograph that you will see a few minutes afterwards. The map dowsing experiment asks you to guess where on the map the computer will randomly place a target. You receive immediate feedback including seeing how well others have done.

Woman’s Dream Solves Mystery

When twelve year old ... was missing and authorities’ intensive search could not locate him, Dawn Bachman had a dream in which she saw his body lying at the bottom of an abandoned septic tank. Finally she decided to contact police and a search of the tank revealed the dead boy’s body.

According to a report by Mark Reynolds in Jacksonville, Florida’s Time Union, Mrs. Bachman doesn’t consider herself a psychic, and in fact her religious beliefs connect psychic ability to witchcraft, but she has had several precognitive dreams in her lifetime that have proven especially helpful. On the other hand, she provided some background information suggesting that her dream was not psychic, so much as an extension of thoughts about the abandoned tank, which she knew about--her husband discovered it and found children playing in it--and her concern for the missing boy.

For more information go to http://www.Jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/072600/met_3637261.html

Hints Given for Finding Dream Relationship

Henry the Magnificent, by John Murray Reynolds (Adams Press), is a 1947 novel about a man who ultimately meets the woman who had been frequently appearing in his dreams. He had been responding to her as if she were an inner “nima” figure and the story suggests that when he developed sufficiently within himself some of her qualities, he met her in real life, to their mutual delight.

According to Carolyn Godschild Miller, author of Soulmates: Following inner guidance to the relationship of your dreams (H.J. Kramer), the story of Henry, magnificent as it may be, is not unique. As part of her research for what constitutes a soul mate, how we may prepare ourselves for one, and how we may meet one, Dr. Miller has compiled many such stories--some quite incredible and with psychic overtones.

For every story of a fateful encounter Dr. Miller recounts, however, she also presents clinical data showing that it’s often not a matter of “meeting” or “finding” one’s soul mate, but a matter of cultivating in oneself the ability to relate to others at a deep, soul fulfilling level.

The Voice of Intuition Feels Special

How can you distinguish your genuine intuition from your hopes and fears? It is a common question and one deserving of a major research effort on an international scale. It might take that, or its equivalent, should one proposed answer to this question be valid.

In her new book, Developing intuition: Practical guidelines for daily life (New World Library), Shakti Gawain, best-selling author of Creative Visualization, proposes a strategy for learning to distinguish the “voice” of intuition from other inner “voices.” A student of Drs. Hal and Sidra Stone’s “Voice Dialogue Process,” she learned to dialogue with her various inner selves to gain familiarity with the quality of their “voices.” Among the various inner selves she mentions are the “responsible one,” the “free spirit,” as well as the intuitive self.

Over time she learned that the voice of her intuition had a particular “feel” to its energy.

She described it thusly: “... a feeling of enlivenment, openness, even sometimes relief and release.” Are such feelings universal or unique to Ms. Gawain? Perhaps a public survey should be undertaken.

Prevention, the Best Medicine, is Most Ignored

Although we say that prevention is the best medicine, doctors, especially American doctors, tend to overlook it. According to a study published in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine, the major medical journals devote little space to studies of prevention. When Dr. Steven H. Woolf, of the Medical College of Virginia, reviewed the 1998 contents of the two major medical journals--the ones most seen by doctors and responsible for most of the health news reported to the general public--Journal of the American Medical Association and the New England Journal of Medicine, he found that just two per cent of the pages dealt with the subject of a healthy lifestyle and other aspects of prevention. While there were thirty two articles on the treatment of HIV, there were only four on the prevention of spreading sexually transmitted diseases. Most of the prevention research focused on diseases that affect few people. There was not a single article on how to prevent children from smoking.

It might be noted, that while the World Health Organization rates America as number forty three in terms of the health of the average citizen, they rate Japan, which has a much greater emphasis upon prevention, as number one.

Dreaming Aids Learning

New studies involving PET scans of the brain show that learning occurs during dream sleep. The research, reported in the journal Nature Neuroscience, compared brain scans of subjects learning a complex visual-motor task (seeing a symbol light up, pressing a designated lever) with what occured while sleeping. They found that the same pattern of brain activity observed during learning was also observed during the dreaming part of sleep, but during no other period of sleep. The performance of such the visual-motor task improves after sleep, and thus the researchers conclude that during dreaming the subject is “practising” in some manner.

For further information, see http://www.salon.com/health/feature/2000/05/11/dreams/index.html

Boundaries Dissolve in Drinking Water

Ecology was one of the first scientific disciplines to show, by way of tracking the path of pollutents, the dissolving boundaries between nations. It’s one thing to monitor industries for dumping waste products inot water supplies, but what about dealing with the waste products of ordinary citizens? The crisis in boundaries continues to escalate beyond typical sanitation concerns as scientists discover that trace amounts of medicines taken by citizens are making appearance in the municipal water supply.

The problem of “second hand drugs,” according to a report in Science News, such as traces of heart medicine and hormones, including birth control medication, is not great enough to cause any problem in humans at this point. Several studies of fish, however, have indicated changes in their reproduction behavior.

Global Warming Casues by Humans

It’s not a natural process, we’re doing it by our lifestyle. A study published in Science has shown that natural causes, such as variations in sunshine, or volcanic activity, cannot account for the increase in average temperatures observed since 1900. The study, conducted by Dr. Thomas J. Crowley, a geologist at Texas A&M University, showed that it is the increase in carbon dioxide, the greenhouse effect created by the burning of fossil fuels, that is causing the majority of the warming.

The publication of this study has caused a stir among scientists, according to a report in the New York Times. For some it is a landmark study, because it is the first to unravel the combined effects of natural causes and human behavior. Other scientists criticize the study’s methods.

It is important to provide definitive evidence of the effect of human behavior on global warming because of the need to affect governmental policies.

Spindrift Foundation Supports Prayer Research

Spindrift is the wind driven foam at the peak of waves, seen especially in high seas during storms. It symbolizes, for the foundation bearing its name, the meeting of matter and the invisible force of consciousness, as seen in prayer, and also in the reaction of people to research on prayer itself.

The Spindrift Foundation, with origins in Christian Science, has specialized in the effect of prayer on plants, but has also conducted research on the healing effects of prayer. The founders--the father and son team of Bruce and John Klingbeil-- received a lot of criticism for studying people while they were in prayer.

Their research uncovered the fact that goal-directed prayer has different effects than non-directive prayer and that many people have a preference for one form of prayer over the other.

To explore their prayer research, see http://home.xnet.com/~spindrif/

[note to editor: web site address is without “www” and the final “t” in spindrift is not used]

Memory is Falliable

False memory syndrome has gained notoreity in cases of alleged incest and alien abduction, and perhaps, to a lesser extent, in past life regression. Recent research conducted at Northwestern University shows that memory is naturally fragile, malleable and unreliable, even without treatment by hypnosis.

Adult men, aged forty-eight, were asked questions about their childhood. These adults were selected for study because when they were freshment at the University of Chicago, they were asked these same questions and their answers had been recorded. Thus the researchers were able to compare the answers given during their teen years, and in their adulthood. The comparison revealed some interesting changes in their memory for their childhood.

These men recalled their fathers as being stricter than they did as teenagers. They recalled a greater enjoyment of intellectual activities in childhood than their teenaged selves remembered. The one area where they remembered things the same as they did as a teenager: the importance of having a girlfriend!

For further information, see http://www.chicago.tribune.com/news/metro/chicago/article/0,2669,ART-45087,FF.html

Religiousness Promotes Desire for Interdependence

Sign outside church: “Need help? Ask God. Don’t need help? Thank God!”

A study conducted at Ohio State University showed that a person’s religiousness has an effect upon the perceived value of interdependence vs. independence. In this study, reported in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, college students and human service providers were asked to rate the degree of their religiousness. They also indicated how much they valued certain traits or attributes, including interdependence with others, independence, leadership, dominance, idealism and power.

The results indicated that those who claimed a high degree of religiosity showed a greater attraction to interdependence than to independence, while those who said they were not religious preferred independence. Both groups, however, were equally attracted to power, which the researchers said meant that interdependence did not mean “weakness” to the religiously minded, but rather a desire for harmony with God and the creatures of creation.

For further information, see http://www.acs.ohio-state.edu/units/research/

Exercise combats Depression

With antidepressants a best selling medicine, it is important to note that physical exercise is repeatedly being shown as just as effective in alleviating depression as the drugs. In a recent study, for example, conducted at Duke University Medical Center, researchers compared exercise with Zoloft, the antidepressant manufactured by Pfizer, Inc. for dealing with major depression, not just “the blues.” The results of the study, reported in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, showed that exercise alone, Zoloft alone, or a combination of the two, were equally effective in reducing or even eliminating the symptoms, but that exercise was the most effective in keeping the symptoms from returning.

The exercise program involved thirty minutes of either brisk walking, stationary bike riding, or jogging, three times a week.

After four months of treatment, approximately sixty per cent of the participants had symptomatic relief from their depression. Six months later, the researchers examined those subjects once again. They found that of those still taking medication, almost forty per cent of them had experienced a relapse of symptoms. Of those still exercising, however, only eight per cent experienced any recurrence of depression.

The researchers do not know why exercise alone, even better than exercise plus medication, worked better to keep depression at bay. One theory, according to an Associated Press report on the research, is that exercise gives the person a sense of personal control that is not equalled by taking medication, which may carry even a negative connotation. More research will be required to determine how exercise functions to improve major depression, but the study does add to the growing evidence favoring exercise as the best medicine.

For further information, see http://wire.ap.org/APnews/main.html?FRONTID=SCIENCE&STORYID=APIS7772APGO

Helping Science and Religion Get Along

“Why can’t the cowman and the farmer be friends?” asks the song from Oklahoma? Maybe because they see things differently.

The same may apply to science and religion. Whereas science sees the world through the senses and uses rationality as its coin of the realm, religion draws upon feeling and intuition. They are just different breeds! So explains Richard Honeycutt, of the Graduate College of the Union Institute. In an article entitled, “Stepping toward the light at the mouth of the cave,” published in The Journal of Faith and Science Exchange by the Boston Theological Institute, professor Honeycutt analyses the great gulf that divides these two potent forces in society, hoping to provide a basis for reconciliation.

In an analysis reminiscent of the psychiatrist Carl Jung’s demonstration of how sensory/thinking types can’t relate to feeling/intuitive types, Honeycutt notes nevertheless that if the work of intuitives such as Edgar Cayce, Eileen Garrett and Master Eckhart are compared, there is a consistency among them that provides a type of “objectivity” that resembles that obtained among observers of the external world using the scientific methods. In other words, the feeling/intuitive mode of obtaining knowledge about the realms of consciousness create a level of consensus analogous to the consensus achieved by the rational/sensory mode of observing the external world.

Another great divide separates the two breeds, at least so far. Using their methodology, the scientist believes, observes and confirms that materiality is primary, and that it is the brain that creates consciousness. The mind bubbles up, as it were, from the workings of the brain, and each mind is a separate little phenomenon. Using their methodology, the mystic intuits/feels that the mind or consciousness is primary and that the brain was evolved by mind to better reveal itself to itself.

In concluding comments, Honeycutt refers to Edgar Cayce as one feeling/intuitive types whose model of the relationship between mind and matter, while similar to others of the same breed, offers a basis for reconciling science and religion.

For further information, contact Richard Honeycutt, 404 Olivia Drive, Lexington, NC 27295; email: rhoneycutt@alumni.wfu.edu