PSI RESEARCH SUBMITTED ON JUNE 1, 2004
Planet
Two May Be in Our Future
Apocalyptic
imagination, such as produced the Bible’s book of Revelation, is active
today and provides evidence concerning the world’s intuition about possible
futures. In her book, Planet Two: Earth in a higher dimension (Hampton
Roads Publishing), Lynn Grabhorn presents the idea of a complementary existence
on our planet earth. This “planet two” is an alternate reality, co-mingling
with the present one, yet peopled by souls “vibrating at a higher frequency”
and experiencing quite a different world.
Using an intuitive channel of exploration, the author has provided a detailed scenario of this imagined alternative existence. The suggestion is that earth might provide multi-realities for existence on the planet as a function of state of consciousness. One such state of consciousness arises from leaving the material existence, as in “death” and assuming a spirit or light-body existence. Another state of consciousness is a spiritual one, not requiring death of the physical body, but requiring meditation and living in loving harmony with other beings. There is the suggestion that those living in such a “high” state of mind will not encounter those others who live in the state of consciousness characterized by greed and violence.
---------
What
Keeps Souls Apart in the Afterlife?
When
we experience each other with our senses, Edgar Cayce tells us, we see that we
are separate. When we use our imagination (as in feeling a heart connection with
someone) we become aware of our oneness. What becomes of this principle on the
other side, in the afterlife? What is the boundary between souls? Spirit
communication, the modern form of mediumship, is gaining popularity as a
research tool for exploring the conditions of consciousness when souls leave the
physical body after death.
In
a recently published book of this genre, Conversations with Mama: If This Is
Heaven Why Are The Kids Still Calling? (iUniverse) by Milt and Susan
Sanderford, the authors note an intriguing idea communicated about the
difference between space in the physical world and the “space” in which
interactions occur or don’t occur among souls: “Awareness does not create a
physical movement, but an awakening. All levels of growth have to do with
awareness and awakening rather than going somewhere or being somewhere else.
Someone who is more awake and aware than I am exists at a different level than I
am. I am not aware of them because my awareness is not at that level.”
This
description may correspond, on the level of earthbound, material existence, to
the fact that two people may see the same thing with their eyes, but because of
differences in what is in their hearts, may imagine different possibilities and
thus walk in functionally different worlds, unaware of other realities.
Healthy
People’s Habits Documented
What
do healthy people do differently than those who are not so healthy? David Niven,
Ph.D., has researched this question and compiled his findings in the book, The
100 simple secrets of healthy people (HarperSanFrancisco). Among his findings,
he discovered that healthy people
*
take it easy on vitamins
*
take a “time out” rest on a daily basis
*
keep a clean house
*
eat less, but more often
*
are quick to forgive
*
use the stairs instead of the elevator
*
make their friends a priority
*
participate in some form of religious practice
*
follow through on their intentions
-----------------------
Information
Field Theory Confirms Cayce
The
oneness of spirit and the material reality it manifests through the patterns of
universal mind—one of Edgar Cayce’s basic formulas of existence—receives a
comprehensive scholarly context from an Islamic scholar. In his book, Mysticism,
aesthetics, and cosmic consciousness: A post-modern worldview of unity of being
(Global Academic Publishing) A.R.E. member Ashgar T. Minai, Ph.D., integrates
many of Cayce’s metaphysical assertions about the nature of reality with
modern science, post-modern philosophy and ancient Persian mysticism.
Among
the various assertions for which he provides substantiating evidence and
multi-disciplinary corroboration and support, Minai shows that aesthetics, or
our intuitive response to beauty, is a vehicle for learning truth from nature.
The inherent structure among patterns in the universal mind has an essential
beauty that distinguishes, to intuitive perception, true ideas from false ones.
The use of aesthetics, on all sensual dimensions of experience, to trigger
higher states of consciousness, as Cayce suggested in his readings on the Temple
Beautiful, receives support from this underlying connection between truth and
beauty.
---------------------
Online
Intuition Development
The
Edgar Cayce Institute for Intuitive Studies, an adult continuing education
school within Atlantic University, has recently enhanced its online intuition
development course, “Get Connected with Intuition.” Regarded as the most
comprehensive online course of its kind, combining reading material, interactive
intuition development tools and access to participation in the major intuition
and psychic research activities available to internet readers, this constantly
updated course is now available for continuing education credit.
----------------
After a Period of Brightness, Earth Dims, Researchers Say
By KENNETH CHANG
Published: May 28, 2004
Tracking the brightness of Earth by looking at its reflection on the Moon,
scientists have concluded that sunshine on Earth brightened in the 1990's,
then dimmed after 2000.
The findings, being reported today in the journal Science, add a new level
of mystery to the recent debate about "global dimming" and its causes.
Measurements by ground-based instruments around the world have shown a
decrease of up to 10 percent in sunlight from the late 1950's to the early
1990's.
"This would say that it reversed through the 80's and 90's to a global
brightening and now it's flattening," said Dr. Philip R. Goode, a professor
of physics at the New Jersey Institute of Technology and an author of the
Science article. "And the suggestion is that the trend is turning back to
the other direction."
The output of the Sun varies only slightly, so scientists theorize that
global dimming probably results from air pollution. Some light bounces off
soot particles in the air. The pollution also causes more water droplets to
condense out of air, leading to thicker, darker clouds, which block light.
For that reason, the dimming appears to be more pronounced on cloudy days.
Some less polluted regions have experienced little or no dimming.
The notion remains controversial because it runs counter to expectations of
global warming (less sunlight should mean lower temperatures), and some
scientists wonder how widespread the dimming effects are. The ground-based
measurements do not cover the oceans.
Unlike the earlier data, the research did not look at sunshine on Earth.
Instead, Dr. Goode and colleagues at the Big Bear Solar Observatory in
California and the California Institute of Technology used a principle
described by Leonardo da Vinci. The bright side of the Moon is lighted by
sunshine. The dark side is not completely dark. Rather, as Leonardo deduced,
it is dimly illuminated by light reflected off Earth.
Using a small telescope at Big Bear, the astronomers have for the past five
years measured the relative brightness of the two sides of the Moon, which
tells how much light is bouncing off Earth back into space, what the
scientists call "earthshine." The reflectivity is largely a measure of
clouds, which are much shinier than the ocean or ground. Thus, a brightening
of earthshine means a dimming on Earth's surface, because less light is
reaching the ground.
On average, Earth reflects about 30 percent of the incoming sunlight, but
that varies day to day and hour to hour. When the Sun rises over a cloudy
Asia, earthshine might brighten by 10 percent. Reflectivity also varies by
season, higher in April than in October, because the Northern Hemisphere
tends to be cloudier than the Southern Hemisphere.
Over all, reflectivity increased - and sunshine dimmed at the surface - from
1999 to 2003, with an especially sharp jump last year. But the reflectivity
was lower than what the scientists measured during an earlier round of
observations in 1994 and 1995. They then took NASA data on cloud cover
from1985 to 2000 to calculate the reflectivity. The calculations indicate
that Earth reflected 32 percent of sunlight in 1985 and that the
reflectivity declined 7 percent over the next 15 years, which would
correspond to a brightening of sunshine on Earth.
"It gives at least a good argument that the clouds are not getting thicker
globally," said Dr. Beate G. Liepert, a research scientist at the
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University.
The researchers said they could not say what was driving the changes in
reflectivity. "What we say is somehow the cloud properties have
changed,"
Dr. Goode said. The brightening coincided with accelerated rising of global
temperatures in the late 1990's.
Other scientists have also reported signs that global dimming halted in the
1990's. At a joint meeting of American and Canadian geological societies in
Montreal this month, Dr. Martin Wild, a climatologist at the Swiss Federal
Institute of Technology in Zurich, reported that sunshine measurements from
10 stations worldwide showed no signs of dimming during the 90's. "This is
a
preliminary result, but I think it gives a clear picture," Dr. Wild said.
Dr. Rachel T. Pinker, a professor of meteorology at the University of
Maryland, said satellite measurements from July 1983 to September 2001 also
showed no signs of dimming.
"On a global scale, we didn't find a decrease," Dr. Pinker said.
"In fact,
we found a small increase."
Since 2000, reflectivity has since risen to near the 1985 level. But Dr.
Goode said more observations were needed to tell whether the upward jump
last year in reflectivity was "was a hiccup or it's really a trend."
Source:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/28/science/28shine.html
-----------------------
Brain-watching helps suppress pain
16:00 03 May 04
Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe and get 4 free issues.
People can learn to suppress pain when they are shown the activity of a
pain-control region of their brain, a small new study suggests. The new
biofeedback technique might also turn out to be useful for treating other
conditions.
Biofeedback techniques based on electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings of
brainwave patterns, in which electrodes are placed on the scalp, are used
with some success to treat epilepsy and attention problems such as ADHD.
But no one has found a way to use this method for controlling pain in
people, says Peter Rosenfeld of Northwestern University in Chicago, one of
the pioneers of biofeedback.
Twenty years ago Rosenfeld found that he could change the pain threshold in
mice by training them to alter their brainwave patterns through a process
called conditioned learning, where an altered brainwave state was rewarded
by direct stimulation of the reward centres in their brains. Since this
meant placing an electrode into the brain, however, his team never tried the
technique on people.
Now Fumiko Maeda, Christopher deCharms and their colleagues at Stanford
University in California have tried showing people real-time feedback from a
functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner.
The difference between EEGs and fMRI, says Rosenfeld, is that fMRI allows
you to show volunteers how much activity there is in specific areas of their
brains. "From scalp recordings, you don't really know what you are
recording," he says.
The eight volunteers saw the activity of a pain-control region called the
rostral anterior cingulate cortex represented on a screen either as a flame
that varied in size, or as a simple scrolling bar graph. This brain region
is known to modulate both the intensity and the emotional impact of pain.
During the scans the volunteers had to endure painful heat on the palm of
their hand. They were asked to try to increase or decrease the signal from
the brain scanner and to periodically rate their pain sensations.
It took just three 13-minute sessions in the scanner for the eight
volunteers to learn to vary the brain activity level, and thus to develop
some control over their pain sensations, the researchers reported at the
Cognitive Neuroscience Society meeting in San Francisco last week.
The effect seemed to last beyond the sessions in the scanner, although the
researchers have yet to determine how strongly and for how long.
The volunteers could not explain how they did it. The researchers ruled out
other explanations for the effect through a series of controls. They gave
people false feedback data, no feedback at all, or feedback from a part of
the brain unrelated to pain control. They also sometimes asked people to pay
attention to the pain or distracted their attention away from it.
The technique might prove useful not only for training patients to control
pain, but perhaps also for treating other illnesses where brain activity is
altered, such as depression or dementia. It might even help boost normal
brain function.
It could also prove a valuable research tool, helping establish links
between specific patterns of brain activity and behaviour. But its use is
likely to be limited by the high cost of fMRI scanners.
Helen Phillips, San Francisco
Source:
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994931
------------------------------------
God's Country
By WALTER KIRN
Published: May 2, 2004
I remember my own family's Great Awakening back in the Jesus-haunted 1970's,
when President Carter was advertising his piety and ''Godspell'' and ''Up
With People'' were packing concert halls. In the same way that it does now,
three decades later, religion seemed to be everywhere back then -- except in
our house. We were secular suburbanites, prone to all of the usual
middle-class miseries, and when one of us felt particularly low, we called a
doctor, not a priest. But then one day two missionaries came knocking, and
everything changed. They were Mormons, two crewcut, fresh-faced boys weighed
down with books that they promised would save our souls -- souls that we
weren't even certain we possessed. Reading the books enlightened us,
however; we converted to Mormonism a few months later. And it worked -- for
a time. The diffuse domestic gloom that had mysteriously settled on our home
suddenly lifted. We let the sunshine in.
America is the revival that never ends, the camp meeting that never fully
adjourns. Jonathan Edwards, Joseph Smith, Mary Baker Eddy, Billy Graham,
Jimmy Swaggart and -- can it be? -- Mel Gibson. Behold the evangelist with a
thousand faces, steadily sermonizing through the ages. And yet, now and
then, there's a spiritual surge that captures the public's and the media's
attention and gives the impression that something new is brewing. God,
though he's never been away, comes back, and amnesiac social observers watch
in awe.
We seem to be smack in the middle of such a moment, at least according to
the business pages. Christian pop culture is earning mainstream millions. On
TV, ''Joan of Arcadia'' pulls big ratings by earnestly conversing with the
deity, and in the record stores ''worship albums'' that feature ecstatic
direct addresses to heaven are reaching larger audiences. What's more, such
entertainments' production values, which used to be comparatively homely,
have become indistinguishable from the competition's.
Fans and partisans of religious pop culture aren't at all surprised by these
successes. For years now, the Christian rock scene has been one of the few
vibrant rock scenes going in America. As hip-hop and urban R&B began to
dominate the commercial airwaves, the traditional sounds of the guitar-based
combo found a sanctuary in church auditoriums. By staying at least a little
behind the times, P.O.D. and other Christian bands, like Amish farmers, were
able to buy up neglected musical acreage, cultivate it using traditional
methods and, ultimately, make it pay.
Other Christian entertainment mediums have followed the same course. With
the end of the cold war, the authors of thrillers temporarily found
themselves without an archenemy to fuel their stories. In walked Satan. The
''Left Behind'' series, Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins's pulpy epic, has
managed to stretch the biblical apocalypse into a never-ending twilight
battle whose cliffhanging plot points are worthy of Spider-Man comic books.
And movies like ''The Omega Code'' -- another dramatization of Armageddon --
have stealthily filled the shelves of video stores.
For some, this onslaught of glossy evangelism has an ominous, foreboding
quality. Just as postmodernism in the arts seemed to be winning acceptance
from the masses, a recycled premodernism has emerged that rejects ambiguity
and ambivalence for the old Sunday-morning certainties. Combine this
movement with a political atmosphere that requires even progressive
Democrats to quote from Scripture on the stump and be photographed entering
and leaving church, and it's tempting to wonder whether this latest
Awakening (if indeed that's what it is) actually heralds a cultural Big
Sleep.
I don't think so. I take a more benevolent view. For personal reasons, I've
been doing a lot of driving lately, crisscrossing the West and the Midwest
and noticing along the way just how far the new Bible Belt extends from its
traditional Southern origins. Religious-themed T-shirts, posters for
Christian rock concerts, signs promoting traveling evangelists and
billboards preaching sexual abstinence don't just dot the landscape; they
are the landscape, especially in the smaller towns and cities. Christian pop
culture seems, at times, to be all the pop culture such underdog places
have, at least in any local, grass-roots sense. Big TV, big music and big
film, by clustering in the nation's glitziest ZIP codes and focusing --
almost exclusively, at times -- on the lives and loves of affluent young
singles, have left vast swaths of the country to the preacher-folk, who've
seized the day by slicking up their acts. It's no wonder that some are now
ready for prime time.
America's first two Great Awakenings, in the 18th and 19th centuries, were
not just religious movements, but democratic ones. They offered salvation at
the retail level to the underrepresented, the overlooked and the previously
uninterested, and they broke down the old institutional authority of a
sheltered, privileged priest class. Suddenly, anyone could go to heaven, and
almost anyone could lead them there. That's what's happening now, I sense,
if you think of entertainers as our new priests and movies, books and songs
as our new catechisms. This isn't a fresh Awakening so much as a populist,
media-savvy continuation of the fervor that first swept the seaboard
colonies, then the frontier and, much later, my family home in a
middle-class neighborhood of Phoenix.
The flame is an old one; only the fuel is new. And there's still plenty of
it. Expect it to burn on.
Source:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/02/magazine/02WWLN.html?ex=1085976000&en=d7da
03ee77375504&ei=5070
--------------------
Telecommunications
Approaches Telepathy
If
you’ve ever wondered why we need to develop telepathy given the development of
instant messaging via cell phones, you are not alone. Advances in
telecommunications promise to make telepathy seem old fashioned as well as
unreliable.
Scientists
hoping to overcome the handicap of paralysis have developed electrical devices
that can be implanted into the human being that translate thoughts into
electrical signals that can, with the help of other implanted technology,
trigger neural events in the body to create physical movement. In another area
of development, researchers are developing implants for the hearing impaired
that can translate auditory information into nerve impulses that connect with
the brain’s auditory center, so that the person’s brain can “hear” the
sounds.
It
is conceivable that these achievements will one day lead to what George Dvorsky
calls “techlepathy,” or the technological equivalent of telepathy. Dvorksy
is president
of the Toronto Transhumanist Association, a nonprofit organization devoted to
encouraging the use of technology to transcend limitations of the human body.
In his view, advances in communications technology has shrunk the planet and
brought people closer together. As brain science and communication technology
advance, it is inevitable, he argues, that one day the researchers will develop
devices to permit direct, mind-to-mind communication.
Evolving Towards Telepathy
Demand for increasingly powerful communications technology points to our future as a "techlepathic" species By George Dvorsky
Betterhumans Staff 4/26/2004 6:39 PM
I recently read with great interest of researcher Chuck Jorgensen's work at NASA's Ames Research Center. It was the kind of news item that made the rounds among the cognoscenti that day, only to be forgotten the next. But it stuck with me for days afterwards.
Jorgensen and his team developed a system that captures and converts nerve signals in the vocal chords into computerized speech. It is hoped that the technology will help those who have lost the ability to speak, as well as improve interface communications for people working in spacesuits and noisy environments.
The work is similar in principle to how cochlear implants work. These implants capture acoustic information for the hearing impaired. In Jorgensen's experiment the neural signals that tell the vocal chords how to move are intercepted and rerouted. Cochlear implants do it the other way round, by converting acoustic information into neural signals that the brain can process. Both methods capitalize on the fact that neural signals provide a link to the analog environment in which we live.
As I thought further about this similarity it occurred to me that the technology required to create a technologically endowed form of telepathy is all but upon us. By combining Jorgensen's device and a cochlear implant with a radio transmitter and a fancy neural data conversion device, we could create a form of communication that bypasses the acoustic realm altogether.
I
decided to contact Jorgensen and other researchers about the prospect of such
"techlepathy." While I have always entertained the idea that we'll
eventually develop telepathy-enabling technologies, the optimistic responses I
received from these researchers startled me nonetheless. And as I suspected, the
technologies and scientific insight required for such an achievement are rapidly
coming into focus
The dream of mind-to-mind communication and the desire to transcend one's own consciousness is as old as language itself. You could make a strong case that there's a near pathological craving for it, a tendency that manifests through the widespread belief in paranormal telepathy.
ESP aside, it seems that this craving will soon be satisfied. Several advances in communications technology and neuroscience are giving pause about the possibility of endowing us with techlepathy. As we continue to ride the wave of the communications revolution, and as the public demand for more sophisticated communications tools continues, it seems a veritable certainty that we are destined to become a species capable of mind-to-mind communication.
This
prospect is as profound as it is exciting. Such a change to the species would
signify a prominent development in the evolution of humanity
that
would irrevocably alter the nature of virtually all human relations and
interactions.
This
trend shows no signs of slowing down, pointing the way to a remarkable
interconnected future.
Source:
http://www.betterhumans.com/Features/Columns/Transitory_Human/column.aspx?ar
ticleID=2004-04-26-4
------------------
Is
the Holy Grail Buried in Canada?
In
1398, almost one hundred years before Columbus arrived in the New World,the
Scottish prince Henry Sinclair, Earl of Orkney, sailed to what is today Nova
Scotia, where his presence was recorded by Mi’kmag Indian legends about “Glooskap.”
According to William Mann’s book The Knights Templar in the New World: How
Henry Sinclair brought the Grail to Acadia (Destiny Books), this was the
same Prince Henry Sinclair who offered refuge to the Knights Templar fleeing the
persecution unleashed against the Order by French king Philip the Fair early in
the fourteenth century.
With
evidence from archaeological sites, indigenous legend, and sacred geometry
handed down by the Templar Order to the Freemasons, Mann claims to have now
rediscovered the site of the settlement established by Sinclair and his Templar
followers in the New World. Here they found a safe refugre for the Grail—the
holy bloodline connecting the House of David to the Merovingian Dynasty through
the descendents of Jesus and Mary Magdalene—until the British exiled all the
Acadians in 1755.
Spiritual
Neurology Maps Unio Mystica
When
nuns recall their mystical experiences, aka “Unio Mystica,” functional
magnetic resonance imaging reveals that the center of their brain shows
significantly increased activity and EEG recordings reveal increased occurrence
of slow theta wave activity. These are some of the initial results of research
conducted by Maria Beauregard, a neuroscientist from the University of Montreal
with the cooperation of Carmelite nuns.
The
technological aspects of this research seem simple compared to the diplomatic
aspects. Beauregard notes that many of the nuns refused to participate in the
research because of their assumption that he was trying to prove that religious
experience was a brain hallucination. Other nuns were supportive of his work in
“neurotheology,” as he calls it, but felt that it was impossible, and
perhaps not valid, to try to induce these mystical moments in the laboratory.
Most of the nuns who had experienced unio mystica had done so only once or twice
in their lives. They did agree to spend time in the laboratory remembering the
experience, which is what Dr. Beauregard used as his target in his brain
monitoring experiments.
Proponents
of his research suggest that for those people whose lives have been more tragic
and abusive than happy and supportive, the brain circuitry involved in the
mystical moments have never been turned on. Research may provide a way to
retrain the brain to become more receptive to spiritual experiences.
Spiritual neurology
A mystical union
Mar 4th 2004
From The Economist print edition
Bridgeman
A small band of pioneers is exploring the neurology of religious experience
THE renowned French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot once scribbled some
notes while under the influence of the psychedelic drug mescaline.
Colleagues were puzzled because among the scribbles was the incongruous
statement, written in English, ³I love you Jennifer². Still more puzzling
was the question: who was Jennifer? That was not the name of his wife nor of
anyone else they thought he knew. Despite the mystery, Dr Charcot's
colleagues never thought to question the scientific value of the experiment.
The same cannot be said of Mario Beauregard, a brain-imager from the
University of Montreal, who has also experimented with mescaline. But that
is because Dr Beauregard is interested in one particular, and far more
contentious, aspect of the mescaline experience
the type carried out by Charcot that opened up the possibility of
investigating spirituality in a scientific manner, by showing that it could
be manipulated. Dr Beauregard is following up on these by trying to discover
where in the brain religious experience is actually experienced.
Mario Beauregard (in French) and Andrew Newberg have conducted research into
religious experience. See also an abstract of Olaf Blanke¹s article
published in Brain.
In the first of what he hopes will be a series of experiments, Dr Beauregard
and his doctoral student Vincent Paquette are recording electrical activity
in the brains of seven Carmelite nuns through electrodes attached to their
scalps. Their aim is to identify the brain processes underlying the Unio
Mystica
using positron-emission tomography and functional magnetic-resonance
imaging, the most powerful brain-imaging tools available.
The study has met with scepticism from both subjects and scientists. Dr
Beauregard had first to convince the nuns that he was not trying to prove or
disprove the existence of God. Scientific critics, meanwhile, have accused
him of being too reductionist
game by feeling the contours of each others' skulls to find a bulge of
secretiveness or a missing patch of generosity.
Dr Beauregard does not, in fact, believe there is a neurological ³God
centre². Rather, his preliminary data implicate a network of brain regions
in the Unio Mystica, including those associated with emotion processing and
the spatial representation of self. But that leads to another criticism,
which he may find harder to rebut. This is that he is not really measuring a
mystical experience at all
This is because the nuns are, so to speak, faking it. They believe that the
Unio Mystica is a gift of God and cannot be summoned at will. Most of them
have only experienced it once or twice, typically in their 20s. To get
around this, Dr Beauregard has drawn on previous experiments he carried out
with actors, which showed that remembering an intense emotional experience
activates the same brain networks as actually having that experience. In
effect, he has asked the nuns to method act, and they are happy to comply.
God and the gaps
Andrew Newberg, a radiologist at the Hospital of the University of
Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, who has scanned the brains of Buddhists and
Franciscan nuns in meditation or at prayer, is familiar with such criticism.
He says that, because religious experience is not readily accessible,
unusually high standards of experimental rigour are demanded of this kind of
research. ³We have frequently argued that many aspects of spiritual
experiences are built upon the brain machinery that is used for other
purposes such as emotions,² he says. ³Very careful research will need to be
done to delineate these issues.²
But that is not a reason for shying away from them, says Olaf Blanke of the
University Hospital of Geneva, Switzerland, whose paper in the February
edition of Brain describes how the brain generates out-of-body experiences.
He points out that plenty of research has been done into another kind of
bodily illusion, phantom limbs. This has identified the brain mechanisms
responsible, and even suggested treatments for these disabling ³appendages².
The same cannot be said of out-of-body experiences, which can also be
disturbing, but occupy a neglected position between neurobiology and
mysticism.
Having subjected six brain-damaged patients to a battery of neuro-imaging
techniques, Dr Blanke's group concludes that damage at the junction of two
lobes of the brain
extrapersonal space becomes blurred, and he sees his body occupying
positions that do not coincide with the position he feels it to be in.
Some patients give this a mystical interpretation, some do not. What is
interesting is that several of the patients suffered from temporal-lobe
epilepsy. An association between this kind of epilepsy and religiosity is
well-documented, notably in a classic series of neurological papers written
by Norman Geschwind in the 1960s and 1970s. Dr Blanke argues that all the
lobes of the brain play a part in something as complex as religious
experience, but that the temporo-parietal junction is a prime node of that
network.
The parietal lobe is thought to be responsible for orienting a person in
time and space, and Dr Newberg also found a change in parietal activation at
the height of the meditative experience, when his volunteers reported
sensing a greater interconnectedness of things. At the end of each recording
session, Dr Beauregard asks the nuns to complete a questionnaire which
gauges not only feelings of love and closeness to God, but also distortions
of time and space. ³The more intense the experience, the more intense the
disorganisation from a spatio-temporal point of view,² he says. Typically,
time slows down, and the self appears to dissolve into some larger entity
that the nuns describe as God.
Whether the Unio Mystica has anything in common with out-of-body
experiences, or even phantom limbs, remains to be seen
starting to become an accepted topic of research in neuroscience. Perhaps
its acceptance will depend ultimately on how the knowledge is used. Dr
Beauregard may have done himself a disservice by arguing that mystical union
should not be reserved for the spiritual few, but should be made available
to everyone, for the benefit of society. Perhaps, like Charcot, he should
stick to describing it, however incongruous the result may be.
Source: http://www.economist.com/science/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2478148
---------------------
Meditation
Resolves Binge Eating
Among
the clinical applications of meditation, working with eating disorders is a new
frontier. Researchers believe that meditation restores a harmony between mind
and body. Binge eating, on the other hand, represents a disconnect between the
two dimensions of the person. A combined research effort, by the Center for the
Study of Health, Religion, and Spirituality at Indiana State University, and the
Center for Integrative Medicine at Duke University, has made progress reducing
binge eating through training in meditation. The training involves both sitting
meditation, yoga movements, and meditative breathing. They also train the
participants in mindful eating using guided eating meditations. The results have
shown positive indications of weight loss and reductions in binge eating.
Bringing more effective tools to the weight-loss table
Psychologists help Americans slim down through self-monitoring, augmented
behavioral therapies and meditation, among other strategies.
BY LEIGH E. RICH
Print version: page 52
In helping people manage and reduce their weight, psychologists have always
tended to favor scientifically based, "whole person"-focused
interventions
over strict dieting, and the current treatment landscape is no different.
Many psychologists use cognitive-behavioral therapies that encourage
self-monitoring, plans for eating and exercise--sometimes combined with drug
regimens--and awareness in eating through mindfulness meditation.
Though similar psychological treatment strategies also have been used with
children, most clinicians researching or working with youngsters prefer to
emphasize prevention. They are attempting to reduce television-viewing,
increase physical activity and teach parents and other adults to model
healthy eating behaviors.
What follows is just a taste of the obesity treatment and prevention
approaches psychologists are using with individual adults and children.
For adults
Successful weight loss in adults is often defined as at least a 10-percent
reduction of initial weight that's maintained for at least one year. Weight
losses at this level generally produce significant improvements in health,
say experts. To help adults reap those benefits, psychologists are
researching and using several different therapeutic tools.
* Self-monitoring. One of the most effective tactics that can be used as
part of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) for managing and reducing weight
is self-monitoring--the systematic observation and recording of target
behaviors, such as reduced calorie and fat intake and increased daily
exercise, says psychologist and weight-loss researcher Daniel Kirschenbaum,
PhD, director of the Center for Behavioral Medicine and Sport Psychology in
Chicago.
He, for example, uses an approach that emphasizes reducing fat intake to 20
grams a day, increasing exercise to more than 10,000 steps a day, and
enhancing self-awareness and focus through the use of daily journals and
pedometers in order to develop what Kirschenbaum calls a "healthy
obsession."
"That's what athletes do," Kirschenbaum says. "Weight-controllers
have to
realize that they're facing a biological battle. The body's going to resist
[losing weight] in a lot of ways. But the bodies of athletes resist change
as well. And what successful athletes do is overcome their resistance
through intensive practice, focusing, commitment and support."
In fact, several studies have found that about a quarter of weight-control
success is attributable to consistent self-monitoring. In a study of 59
women and men participating in long-term cognitive-behavioral treatment for
obesity, published in 1998 in Obesity Research (Vol. 6, No. 3), Kirschenbaum
and psychologist Kerri Boutelle, PhD, demonstrated that unless people
self-monitor at least 75 percent of the time, they may be unlikely to
succeed at weight loss.
* Accentuated CBT. For the remaining 70 percent of people for whom CBT alone
is not enough, psychologists are combining CBT approaches with
protein-sparing modified fasting, appetite suppressant medication,
antidepressant medication and sometimes even surgery (see next page). Unlike
the liquid-based diets of 20 years ago, today's modified fasting regimens
call for a daily intake of 75 to 100 grams of protein--either in the form of
high-quality meats or liquid protein formulas--while limiting overall
calories to about 600 a day. Normal-weight adults consume about 2,000 to
2,800 calories a day.
Kirschenbaum offers a self-monitoring approach combined with a medically
supervised regimen of liquid protein, sometimes used in conjunction with an
appetite suppressant medication. He emphasizes the well-documented benefits,
found in research that he and his colleagues have conducted, of patients'
long-term commitment to such weight-management interventions in his book,
"The 9 Truths About Weight Loss: The No-Tricks, No-Nonsense Plan for
Lifelong Weight Control" (Henry Holt, 2000).
Others' research has also revealed benefits of using CBT approaches in
conjunction with appetite suppressants. In a randomized controlled trial
with adolescents, published in the Journal of the American Medical
Association (Vol. 289, No. 14), psychologist Thomas Wadden, PhD, director of
the Weight and Eating Disorders Program at the University of Pennsylvania
School of Medicine, and colleagues Robert Berkowitz, MD, Andrew M.
Tershakovec, MD, and Joanna L. Cronquist, found that adding an appetite
suppressant to a family-based, behavioral weight-control program induced
significantly more weight loss among the 82 13- to 17-year-old participants.
Conducted from 1999 to 2002, the study assigned the participants, who had
body mass indexes between 32 and 44, to receive behavioral therapy with an
appetite suppressant or with a placebo.
* Meditation. Along with its general stress-relief applications, meditation
is also being studied as an intervention for weight gain and obesity,
particularly for binge-eating disorder. Jean Kristeller, PhD, a psychology
professor at Indiana State University, and Ruth Quillian-Wolever, PhD,
clinic director and clinical health psychologist of the Duke Center for
Integrative Medicine, are completing a randomized clinical trial using
mindfulness meditation.
The meditation used in the study is adapted from the Buddhist contemplative
tradition of vipassana--"to see things as they really are." The
researchers
say that, while the relaxation effects of meditation may help with how food
is used emotionally, the most important aspect may be incorporating
nonjudgmental awareness into eating. In fact, laboratory research on
regulation of eating shows that individuals with eating problems are
generally less aware of experiences of hunger and satiety cues, including
taste-specific satiety and feelings of fullness.
"Rather than assuming such deficits are biologically driven,"
Kristeller
notes, "they may be instead due to a 'disconnection' related to
over-dieting
or to using food primarily to meet emotional needs."
Kristeller and Quillian-Wolever have developed mindfulness exercises to
heighten people's awareness of such cues--and to keep their minds focused on
the current moment of eating, and nothing else. They find that these
experiences are very powerful, with individuals frequently noticing changes
within a few days of applying them to their eating experiences.
In 1999 pilot research involving 18 obese women, Kristeller and doctoral
student Brendan Hallett, now a therapist in Salt Lake City, found that those
who used the approaches reduced bingeing episodes and symptoms of anxiety
and depression, and increased self-acceptance and self-control around food.
Kristeller and Quillian-Wolever are now replicating the pilot study with
about 150 men and women with binge-eating disorder and who weigh on average
240 pounds.
"It's OK to have chocolate, but the idea is to have a little and really
enjoy it, instead of going for quantity," Quillian-Wolever says.
For children
When it comes to weight management in children, psychologists are
concentrating on prevention tactics. Current research targeting overweight
children or those at risk of becoming overweight--an estimated 15 percent of
children, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention--includes examining familial patterns of eating, establishing
healthy eating behaviors and positive attitudes toward food, and reducing
television-viewing. More specifically, prevention tactics psychologists are
using include:
* Positive eating messages. Encouraging positive attitudes toward eating is
critical because studies have indicated that dieting and food restrictions
during childhood may promote weight gain and negatively affect later eating
behaviors, says psychologist Myles Faith, PhD, an assistant professor in the
Weight and Eating Disorders Program at the University of Pennsylvania School
of Medicine.
More important, notes psychologist Marlene Schwartz, PhD, co-director of the
Yale Center for Eating and Weight Disorders, is the catch-22 in which many
parents of overweight children find themselves: Though advised not to place
children on such restrictive diets, they are often blamed for their
children's poor eating habits.
Other parental behavior also can have a long-lasting impact on children's
eating habits. In a study published in Eating Behaviors (Vol. 4, No. 3) in
2003, Schwartz and colleague Rebecca Puhl, PhD, examined self-report
measures of weight and dieting history, current eating practices and
recollections of rules about food while growing up among 122 adult men and
women. The team found that people who said their parents used food to
control their behavior were more likely to have struggles with binge eating
and weight cycling as adults.
In another study, Schwartz and colleagues Eunice Chen, PhD, and Kelly
Brownell, PhD, explored children's preferences for candy versus toys on
Halloween in a study published in 2003 in the Journal of Nutrition Education
and Behavior (Vol. 35, No. 4).
Examining seven households that offered 284 boys and girls 3 to 14 years old
a choice between comparatively sized toys and candies, "We found that when
given a choice, kids were just as likely to choose toys as candy," Schwartz
says. "Parents often feel under a lot of pressure to use unhealthy foods
for
celebrations. We did this study to make the point that parents can choose to
celebrate holidays without relying on unhealthy foods."
* Involving parents. A parent's role is particularly important when it comes
to children with developmental disabilities, psychologists say. That's why
parents of 8- to 12-year-old children with Down syndrome will play an
integral role in a pilot weight-management intervention designed by
psychologist Richard Fleming, PhD, and nutritionist, Linda Bandini, PhD,
both of the University of Massachusetts Medical School's Shriver Center. The
population is important to target, Fleming and Bandini say, because these
youngsters have a high rate of obesity and therefore may be at
greater-than-average risk of developing obesity-related disorders, including
heart disease and diabetes.
The team will separate 20 participants into two groups: one receiving a
nutritional education program and the other the educational program plus a
behavioral intervention. The behavioral intervention will include
self-monitoring, stepwise goal-setting, praise and other natural rewards,
and, critically, establishing daily parental support and modeling of good
eating behavior.
While there will likely be challenges in working with this population,
Fleming says, "I think those challenges will be balanced out by other
factors that work in the kids' favor." These include parents who are often
well versed in using positive behavioral interventions and youngsters who
tend to be outgoing and eager to participate.
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Leigh E. Rich is a writer in Denver.
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FURTHER READING
* Thomas, P.R. (Ed.). (1995). Weighing the options: Criteria for evaluating
weight-management programs. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological
Association.
* Thompson, J.K. (Ed.) (1996). Body image, eating disorders, and obesity: An
integrative guide to assessment and treatment. Washington, D.C.: American
Psychological Association.
* Thompson, J.K., & Smolak, L. (Eds.). (2001). Body image, eating disorders,
and obesity in youth: Assessment, prevention, and treatment. Washington,
D.C.: American Psychological Association.
Source: http://www.apa.org/monitor/jan04/bringing.html
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Also see:
Meditation-Based Treatment for Binge Eating Disorder
This study is no longer recruiting patients.
Sponsored by
National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM)
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to assess the relative effectiveness of a
mindfulness meditation-based intervention for binge eating disorder in
comparison to a psycho-educational intervention and a waiting-list control
group.
Condition Treatment or Intervention
Phase
Binge Eating Disorder
Obesity Behavior: Meditation Phase II
Phase III
MedlinePlus related topics: Eating Disorders; Obesity
Study Type: Interventional
Study Design: Treatment, Randomized, Open Label, Active Control, Factorial
Assignment, Efficacy Study
Further Study Details:
As many as 30% of individuals seeking treatment for obesity meet the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition
(DSM-IV) criteria for binge eating disorder (BED). BED is marked by
recurrent episodes of bingeing, accompanied by feelings of loss of control,
and involves chronic disregulation of physiological, emotional and
behavioral systems. Meditation-based interventions have been used
successfully to treat disorders with similar addictive and disregulatory
characteristics, but have not been applied to treating BED. Data from an
uncontrolled pilot study suggests that such an intervention can have marked
immediate impact on decreasing episodes of binge eating and other associated
characteristics in obese women. Therefore, this study incorporates
appropriate comparison conditions to further investigate the efficacy of a
mindfulness meditation-based intervention as a treatment component for
treating BED symptoms. Exploratory aspects include further development of a
manual, establishment of effect size (in comparison to appropriate
comparison groups), inclusion of a more diverse population, and of measures
that address: 1) individual differences in treatment response, 2) possible
mechanisms, 3) time course of response, and 3) impact on medical/health
variables. Women (approximate N=162) from two communities will be randomly
assigned to 3 conditions: 1) an 8-week manualized meditation-based group
intervention, 2) a psychoeducational comparison condition, or 3) a
waiting-list control. Primary outcome variables will be changes in binge
eating behaviors, and associated measures of depression, anxiety,
self-esteem, and diet; secondary variables include medical variables
sensitive to dietary change (i.e., weight; blood pressure; lipid profile;
blood glucose levels), and process variables related to meditation practice,
such as the Tellegen Absorption Scale, perceived value and use of the
meditation practice, and experiences of increased control and awareness.
Participants will be evaluated pre- and post-treatment, and at 1, 3, and 6
months followup. This data would then support the further investigation of a
meditation-based intervention as part of a more comprehensive treatment
program for BED.
Eligibility
Ages Eligible for Study: 18 Years and above, Genders Eligible for Study:
Both
Criteria
Inclusion Criteria:
* Clinical diagnosis of binge eating disorder;
* BMI at least 30;
* Fluent English speaker/reader;
* Able and willing to attend 9 weekly group sessions over two
months,
plus followup for 6 months, either in geographic area of Terre Haute,
Indiana, or Durham, North Carolina.
Exclusion Criteria:
* Psychiatric or other condition that would preclude
appropriate group
participation;
* On a structured diet program;
* Unstable related medical syndrome (e.g., diabetes,
hypertension);
* Medication that affects weight or appetite that is still
being adjusted
or that is likely to change during the course of the study.
Expected Total Enrollment: 160
Location Information
Indiana
Indiana State University, Terre Haute, Indiana, 47809, United
States
North Carolina
Duke Center for Integrative Medicine, Durham, North Carolina,
27710, United States
Study chairs or principal investigators
Jean L. Kristeller, PhD, Principal Investigator, Indiana State University
Ruth Quillian-Wolever, PhD, Duke University Deptartment of
Psychiatry/Center for Integrated Medicine
More Information
Publications
Kristeller, J.L., Hallett, B. Effects of a meditation-based intervention in
the treatment of binge eating. Journal of Health Psychology. 4(3):357-363,
1999.
Study ID Numbers 1 R21 AT00416-01
Study Start Date January 2002; Estimated Completion Date March 2003
Record last reviewed February 2004
NLM Identifier NCT00032760
ClinicalTrials.gov processed this record on 2004-05-28
Source: http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/show/NCT00032760
Scientists
Find New Face on Back of Turin Shroud
A
matching image of a man's face and possibly his hands have been found on the
back of the Turin shroud by Italian researchers at the University of Padua. The
fact that the new image matches that found on the front makes the possibility of
forgery much less likely.
The
shroud first surfaced in France during the 14th century and has been
housed in Turin, Italy since 1578. The debate over the origin and authenticity
of the fabric has continued ever since. Carbon dating fifteen years ago placed
it in the 13th or 14th century, supporting the idea that
the shroud was a hoax. The back of the shroud, however, had not been studied
until recently. When the Italian researchers examined the rear they found the
matching image. This discovery will add a new twist to, but not end, the debate.
Scientists Find New Face on Back of Turin Shroud
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From Yahoo News:
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By Dominique Vidalon
MILAN (Reuters) - Italian scientists have found a matching image of a man's
face and possibly his hands on the back of the Turin shroud, believed by
many to be the burial cloth of Jesus Christ, one of the researchers said on
Thursday.
The discovery that the ghostly image on the back of the linen cloth matches
the face that adorns the front is likely to reignite debate over whether the
shroud is genuine or a skilful medieval fraud.
"The fact that the image is two-sided makes any forgery difficult,"
Professor Giulio Fanti of the University of Padua told Reuters.
The findings of Fanti and Roberto Maggiolo, both from the university's
department of mechanical engineering, were published this week by a journal
of the Institute of Physics in London.
Fanti said the discovery would support those who maintain the cloth is
genuine.
The shroud, one of Christianity's most sacred but most disputed relics, is a
piece of linen some 4.4 meters (14 feet) long and 1.1 meters (3 feet 7
inches) wide.
It first appeared in France in the 14th century and has been held in the
Italian city of Turin since 1578.
For over 600 years the debate has raged over the origin of the image of a
tall, bearded man bearing the marks of crucifixion that can be seen on the
front of the shroud.
Experts over the years say they have found traces of blood, pollen or soil
typical of Jerusalem, where Christians believe Jesus was crucified.
But 15 years ago three separate laboratories said carbon dating indicated
the shroud was no older than the 13th or 14th century. Researchers concluded
the shroud was a hoax created for the hugely profitable medieval pilgrimage
business.
While the front of the shroud has been studied intensively over the years,
the back had remained hidden under a piece of Holland cloth which was sewn
by nuns to cover up damage caused by a fire.
That protective layer was removed in 2002 for restoration and the back of
the cloth was photographed.
The two scientists said they studied these photographs and used mathematical
and optical techniques to process the images.
They found that the face that can be seen on the reverse of the shroud
matches that of the front.
"We can detect the presence of a nose, eyes, hair, beard and mustache on
the
back surface that correspond in place, form, position and scale to those of
the front," Fanti said.
Speculation has also grown over who created the image. One theory maintains
it was the work of Leonardo da Vinci, who pioneered an early photograph
technique and put his own face on the shroud.
Source:
http://p080.ezboard.com/fgettingsavagefrm20.showMessage?topicID=2726.topic