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Thursday, March 27, 2008
Monday, March 17, 2008
The "childlike" right brain
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/229
So, a couple days ago a friend of mine sent me a video to view. The video is a video of a neuroanatomist by the name of Jill Bolte who had a "left brain" stroke. As she describes in her video, the effects of the stroke were rather dramatic shutting down her left brain in a pre-emptory fashion leaving her, as she describes throughout the course of her video presentation, in the "la la land" of the right hemisphere.
Her descriptions of lateralized brain function are interesting. According to Dr. Bolte, the right hemisphere "thinks in pictures" and "learns through movement." It is kinesthetic, emotional, and, if you go by her descriptions, childlike in its apprehension of the physical realities of this world. I can certainly agree with that, but perhaps infantile would be a better description. Despite the fact that she is having a stroke, this "child brain" within her seems unable to conceptualize the danger and unable to take appropriate steps that might prevent the termination of Dr. B's physical existence. Terrible. And perhaps frightening to anybody looking on. The incompetence of the right brain in this case is positively biblical in proportion.
Thank God for the left brain though. Without what was left of her left brain during the stroke, without the detail oriented, linear, categorizing, rationality of the left brain, Dr. Bolte would most certainly be dead. The right brain couldn't even get through a stack of phone numbers it was so incompetent in this 3D reality.
At the end of the presentation Dr. B. is weeping. "It is beautiful there" she cries, recollecting the beauty of the reality she has left, and speaks in mystical terms about the wonderful Nirvana that everyone can attain, she says, if they just "choose" to be there in the moment.
I got to be honest with you. I grimaced as I sat through this. For me this narrative outlines several problems that we, as scientists and individuals interested in spirituality and spiritual expression, have to overcome if we are to properly understand all the "shifting" that is going on in this world. Allow me to outline these problems.
Problem one relates to the good doctors understanding of the right brain and it's action. going into too much theoretical detail about the right brain, how it connects to the Fabric of Consciousness, and how it's related to left brain, let me just say that the image of the right brain that the good doctor gives us is an image of an immature right brain. It is an image of child's first conscious experiences in this world. It should be obvious from her description. The oceanic feeling (interestingly enough, something that is typical of the perinatal experiences of the immature fetal system (Grof, 1976' 1985)), the inability to function in the world, difficulty attending to the requirements of survival, all these things which she experienced as her left brain functions collapsed are the reactions of infantile child. My four year exhibits more "right brain" maturity this.
Think about it.
We live in a left brain dominated world. We live in a world which, as I outline elsewhere, is antagonistic and hostile to right brain experience. Not only do we traumatize the sensitive right brain, but we give it no room to develop. We emphasize linear/practical thinking in our socialization process, devalue the holistic, artistic, metaphoric, sensibilities of the right brain (as the good doctor does when she calls the processing capabilities of the right hemisphere "la la land.") and generally provide no space for the practical exploration and development of right brain capacities. We, as a world, are hostile to right brain experiences and although it is improving, I still remember a time when kids where slapped if they used their left hand to right with.
You can see the truth of what I'm saying here when you critically examine the narrative account of the good Dr. B. Arguably, Dr. B. is the professional epitome of left brain hyper-dominance and it shows in her atrophied right brain's incapacity to manage, at an adult level, the trauma that she is experiencing.
The question we need to be asking is, is this incapacity natural? Does her description of her child like right brain represent the epitome of right brain potential?
No.
It is simply the result of her own undeveloped right hemisphere. Which brings me to the second problem which is scientists talking about spirit. If you open your intuition here you'll see, there's a big problem. As I argue elsewhere, the planet is currently going through a "great awakening." This great awakening comes down, basically, to a full activation of the Crown Chakra. Since most of us already have activated left hemispheres, this means, practically, that our experiences of awakening will initially put us in touch with an immature right brain. Not so much a problem I suppose if there is good guidance around to help you properly interpret (for your hyper developed left brain) what you are experiencing and provide good guidance on developing and maturing the right hemisphere, but it definitely is a problem when we start listening to "single experience" scientists who present an immature spiritual sensibility as if it is the full potential of right brain processing.
It's a big problem.
I mean, what psychologist in their right mind would look at a new born infant for an assessment of the potential of a properly matured, healthy adult body. Answer? No psychologist. If you want to know what a healthy adult body is capable of, you don't point to the infant as exemplar. Unless you don't know any better, that's just ridiculous. Yet, this is exactly what Dr. B. is doing. Holding a dead brain as a symbol of her expertise (a fascinating little subliminal message of authority sent straight into the "picture processing centers" of the naive right brains of her audience members), she then points to her infantile right brain and says, this is what you are.
But trust me on this. This is not what you are. The bottom line is, her narrative does not represent the full potential of right brain processing and it's important to recognize this. Otherwise, you'll find yourselves locked in a childlike apprehension of the possibilities of spiritual awakening (and of reality for that matter) and that's no good for many reasons, which I won't go into here. In your own awakening work, you want to move beyond these simplistic representations in order to expand and mature the capacities of your right brain. You don't take as a given, or as exemplar, the immature god-child. Progress in spiritual awakening will require right brain therapy and development. Not hard, but quite essential, especially if you want to re-enter "nirvana." Unlike what the good Dr. says (and in complete denial of the empirical reality of her own experience), it's not a simple matter of choice. As long as the right brain remains weak, accessing it will require some form of left brain suppression which, if I'm being honest, makes about as much sense as treppaning, i.e., poking a hole in the left hemisphere just so you can experience the inner god-child of the right once again. Interesting approach, but ultimately counterproductive!
And it's not just a question of developing the right brain. There is a question of safety here. In her experience Dr. B. was quite lucky. The initial awakening of the god-child was not traumatic. But it could have been. As I said earlier, this world is hostile to that inner god-child and it only takes a little bit of time for the god-child (which has, even in undeveloped form, a level of insight quite beyond anything even the fully developed left brain is capable of) to become aware of the hostility and when it does, it will react like any threatened child will. With fear, regression, withdrawal, trauma and lack of comprehension. Of course the left brain will observe this, encode the experience, and say to itself (with more or less force) "I'm not letting that happen again." At which point it will begin to build a wall to protect it self (because it sees "itself" as the sum total of the organism). If this goes on to long, the wall will become basically insurmountable under normal conditions and will require, as is clearly exemplified by the Dr. B. case study, that the left brain be shut down temporarily. In this context, Dr. B.'s advice to "just choose" can be seen clearly for what it is. Naive, uninformed, and potentially damaging to the possibility of strengthening the processing capabilities of the right brain (i.e., fully waking up).
So the point of all this?
Well, there's a couple of points. Point one. If you are scientist investigating spiritual phenomenon, right brain thinking, the ground of being, spiritual awakening, or whatever, please consider that you may be looking at immature examples of spiritual potential. Based on what I've been saying here, even the so called Peak Experiences and mystical experiences (often entheogen induced) often investigated by psychologists may merely be immature expressions of an undeveloped spiritual connection. Please do not present these immature experiences as exemplars of what a fully developed Physical Unit, (i.e., body and mind) is capable of in the realm of spiritual expression.
Point two, be critical. If you are a spiritual seeker, try and recognize when you are dealing with an immature account, or with a "teacher" who remains "spiritually naive" about the "higher realities." I'm not saying don't listen to people. They may have good information for you. But by the same token, they may also be limiting your understanding, appreciation, and forward movement because of their own naivety and their own misinformed presumption to spiritual wisdom. At least consider the possibility
Finally, I'd like to make a comment about dualistic thinking. In science, in this world, we have this tendency to think of everything in terms of this and that. Left and right, up and down, good and bad, black and white. We live in a world of difference, we are told. But do we really? Detail oriented categorization of the world is a something the left brain does but does this represent reality? No. This represents and image of reality imposed on the "ground of experience" as a result of unbalanced development of the Crown Chakra. The "right brain" doesn't see things that way and neither would the left brain if the right brain had a stronger influence . If the right brain wasn't so atrophied, we would not see the world as figure, ground or as discrete particle. We would see the world more for what it is, a wave function, a swirling hot pot of energy that we exist in in an eternal now and over which we have total conscious control. Foreign thinking to the unbalanced left, but just common sense to a developed right brain.
Getting back to the discussion of the good Dr. B. We must remind ourselves of the corpus callosum and the potential for proper hemispheric balance. Proper communication between hemispheres is not given. Like the facilities of reading, writing, and rythmetic, the capacities of the right brain need nourishment. Unfortunately, they normally don't get it. We currently live in what I might like to call a dictatorship of the left brain. Powerful, capable, linear, in control, the left brain dominates our perception of reality and easily suppresses the processing and information provided by the right brain. There is no communication, there is no balance and as a result, the right brain is shut out of experience. Being shut out, it never develops. Like a child lost in a time warp, confined to the grayness of Sheol, the god child inside sits and waits, undeveloped, uninformed, unformed, and immature, waiting for some kind of trauma to the shut the left brain down so that it may share, however briefly, it's unique perspective and power. Under these conditions, is it any wonder that our apprehension of wider realities is confined to moments of physical and psychological trauma, to Near Death Experiences, to entheogen induced enhancements?
Is there any wonder that most common thing the naive individual says when they confront these wider perceptions, "we have no words?" Of course we have no words. How can an infant describe to an adult it's experience. It has no words! But does this mean it cannot develop the words? Does this mean the experiences of the right brain are destined to be indescribable, noetic, and untouchable by the linear left brain.
Well, as a practicing mystic and someone who spent a lot of time developing the right brain by answer is an unequivocal no. You can develop the right brain. You can connect it, as an equal, to the left brain, and you can move forward with a sophisticated analysis and science grounded not in a dictatorial brain but in a balanced left/right that will lead, if I may be forgiven for the prosaic conclusion, to an entirely new world of scientific knowledge of the created cosmos.
Note
"Time tube" image from my Book of Life: Ascension and the Divine World Order
Further Reading
Sharp, Michael (2006). The Book of Light: The Nature of God, the Structure of Consciousness, and the Universe Within You.
Sharp, Michael (2007). My Mystical Big Toe: A Strong Theory of Consciousness and Creation
Sharp, Michael (2008). Entheogens. The SpiritWiki: http://www.thespiritwiki.com/index.php/Entheogens [Accessed: March 17, 2008]
References
So, a couple days ago a friend of mine sent me a video to view. The video is a video of a neuroanatomist by the name of Jill Bolte who had a "left brain" stroke. As she describes in her video, the effects of the stroke were rather dramatic shutting down her left brain in a pre-emptory fashion leaving her, as she describes throughout the course of her video presentation, in the "la la land" of the right hemisphere.
Her descriptions of lateralized brain function are interesting. According to Dr. Bolte, the right hemisphere "thinks in pictures" and "learns through movement." It is kinesthetic, emotional, and, if you go by her descriptions, childlike in its apprehension of the physical realities of this world. I can certainly agree with that, but perhaps infantile would be a better description. Despite the fact that she is having a stroke, this "child brain" within her seems unable to conceptualize the danger and unable to take appropriate steps that might prevent the termination of Dr. B's physical existence. Terrible. And perhaps frightening to anybody looking on. The incompetence of the right brain in this case is positively biblical in proportion.
Thank God for the left brain though. Without what was left of her left brain during the stroke, without the detail oriented, linear, categorizing, rationality of the left brain, Dr. Bolte would most certainly be dead. The right brain couldn't even get through a stack of phone numbers it was so incompetent in this 3D reality.
At the end of the presentation Dr. B. is weeping. "It is beautiful there" she cries, recollecting the beauty of the reality she has left, and speaks in mystical terms about the wonderful Nirvana that everyone can attain, she says, if they just "choose" to be there in the moment.
I got to be honest with you. I grimaced as I sat through this. For me this narrative outlines several problems that we, as scientists and individuals interested in spirituality and spiritual expression, have to overcome if we are to properly understand all the "shifting" that is going on in this world. Allow me to outline these problems.
Problem one relates to the good doctors understanding of the right brain and it's action. going into too much theoretical detail about the right brain, how it connects to the Fabric of Consciousness, and how it's related to left brain, let me just say that the image of the right brain that the good doctor gives us is an image of an immature right brain. It is an image of child's first conscious experiences in this world. It should be obvious from her description. The oceanic feeling (interestingly enough, something that is typical of the perinatal experiences of the immature fetal system (Grof, 1976' 1985)), the inability to function in the world, difficulty attending to the requirements of survival, all these things which she experienced as her left brain functions collapsed are the reactions of infantile child. My four year exhibits more "right brain" maturity this.
Think about it.
We live in a left brain dominated world. We live in a world which, as I outline elsewhere, is antagonistic and hostile to right brain experience. Not only do we traumatize the sensitive right brain, but we give it no room to develop. We emphasize linear/practical thinking in our socialization process, devalue the holistic, artistic, metaphoric, sensibilities of the right brain (as the good doctor does when she calls the processing capabilities of the right hemisphere "la la land.") and generally provide no space for the practical exploration and development of right brain capacities. We, as a world, are hostile to right brain experiences and although it is improving, I still remember a time when kids where slapped if they used their left hand to right with.
You can see the truth of what I'm saying here when you critically examine the narrative account of the good Dr. B. Arguably, Dr. B. is the professional epitome of left brain hyper-dominance and it shows in her atrophied right brain's incapacity to manage, at an adult level, the trauma that she is experiencing.
The question we need to be asking is, is this incapacity natural? Does her description of her child like right brain represent the epitome of right brain potential?
No.
It is simply the result of her own undeveloped right hemisphere. Which brings me to the second problem which is scientists talking about spirit. If you open your intuition here you'll see, there's a big problem. As I argue elsewhere, the planet is currently going through a "great awakening." This great awakening comes down, basically, to a full activation of the Crown Chakra. Since most of us already have activated left hemispheres, this means, practically, that our experiences of awakening will initially put us in touch with an immature right brain. Not so much a problem I suppose if there is good guidance around to help you properly interpret (for your hyper developed left brain) what you are experiencing and provide good guidance on developing and maturing the right hemisphere, but it definitely is a problem when we start listening to "single experience" scientists who present an immature spiritual sensibility as if it is the full potential of right brain processing.
It's a big problem.
I mean, what psychologist in their right mind would look at a new born infant for an assessment of the potential of a properly matured, healthy adult body. Answer? No psychologist. If you want to know what a healthy adult body is capable of, you don't point to the infant as exemplar. Unless you don't know any better, that's just ridiculous. Yet, this is exactly what Dr. B. is doing. Holding a dead brain as a symbol of her expertise (a fascinating little subliminal message of authority sent straight into the "picture processing centers" of the naive right brains of her audience members), she then points to her infantile right brain and says, this is what you are.
But trust me on this. This is not what you are. The bottom line is, her narrative does not represent the full potential of right brain processing and it's important to recognize this. Otherwise, you'll find yourselves locked in a childlike apprehension of the possibilities of spiritual awakening (and of reality for that matter) and that's no good for many reasons, which I won't go into here. In your own awakening work, you want to move beyond these simplistic representations in order to expand and mature the capacities of your right brain. You don't take as a given, or as exemplar, the immature god-child. Progress in spiritual awakening will require right brain therapy and development. Not hard, but quite essential, especially if you want to re-enter "nirvana." Unlike what the good Dr. says (and in complete denial of the empirical reality of her own experience), it's not a simple matter of choice. As long as the right brain remains weak, accessing it will require some form of left brain suppression which, if I'm being honest, makes about as much sense as treppaning, i.e., poking a hole in the left hemisphere just so you can experience the inner god-child of the right once again. Interesting approach, but ultimately counterproductive!
And it's not just a question of developing the right brain. There is a question of safety here. In her experience Dr. B. was quite lucky. The initial awakening of the god-child was not traumatic. But it could have been. As I said earlier, this world is hostile to that inner god-child and it only takes a little bit of time for the god-child (which has, even in undeveloped form, a level of insight quite beyond anything even the fully developed left brain is capable of) to become aware of the hostility and when it does, it will react like any threatened child will. With fear, regression, withdrawal, trauma and lack of comprehension. Of course the left brain will observe this, encode the experience, and say to itself (with more or less force) "I'm not letting that happen again." At which point it will begin to build a wall to protect it self (because it sees "itself" as the sum total of the organism). If this goes on to long, the wall will become basically insurmountable under normal conditions and will require, as is clearly exemplified by the Dr. B. case study, that the left brain be shut down temporarily. In this context, Dr. B.'s advice to "just choose" can be seen clearly for what it is. Naive, uninformed, and potentially damaging to the possibility of strengthening the processing capabilities of the right brain (i.e., fully waking up).
So the point of all this?
Well, there's a couple of points. Point one. If you are scientist investigating spiritual phenomenon, right brain thinking, the ground of being, spiritual awakening, or whatever, please consider that you may be looking at immature examples of spiritual potential. Based on what I've been saying here, even the so called Peak Experiences and mystical experiences (often entheogen induced) often investigated by psychologists may merely be immature expressions of an undeveloped spiritual connection. Please do not present these immature experiences as exemplars of what a fully developed Physical Unit, (i.e., body and mind) is capable of in the realm of spiritual expression.
Point two, be critical. If you are a spiritual seeker, try and recognize when you are dealing with an immature account, or with a "teacher" who remains "spiritually naive" about the "higher realities." I'm not saying don't listen to people. They may have good information for you. But by the same token, they may also be limiting your understanding, appreciation, and forward movement because of their own naivety and their own misinformed presumption to spiritual wisdom. At least consider the possibility
Finally, I'd like to make a comment about dualistic thinking. In science, in this world, we have this tendency to think of everything in terms of this and that. Left and right, up and down, good and bad, black and white. We live in a world of difference, we are told. But do we really? Detail oriented categorization of the world is a something the left brain does but does this represent reality? No. This represents and image of reality imposed on the "ground of experience" as a result of unbalanced development of the Crown Chakra. The "right brain" doesn't see things that way and neither would the left brain if the right brain had a stronger influence . If the right brain wasn't so atrophied, we would not see the world as figure, ground or as discrete particle. We would see the world more for what it is, a wave function, a swirling hot pot of energy that we exist in in an eternal now and over which we have total conscious control. Foreign thinking to the unbalanced left, but just common sense to a developed right brain.
Getting back to the discussion of the good Dr. B. We must remind ourselves of the corpus callosum and the potential for proper hemispheric balance. Proper communication between hemispheres is not given. Like the facilities of reading, writing, and rythmetic, the capacities of the right brain need nourishment. Unfortunately, they normally don't get it. We currently live in what I might like to call a dictatorship of the left brain. Powerful, capable, linear, in control, the left brain dominates our perception of reality and easily suppresses the processing and information provided by the right brain. There is no communication, there is no balance and as a result, the right brain is shut out of experience. Being shut out, it never develops. Like a child lost in a time warp, confined to the grayness of Sheol, the god child inside sits and waits, undeveloped, uninformed, unformed, and immature, waiting for some kind of trauma to the shut the left brain down so that it may share, however briefly, it's unique perspective and power. Under these conditions, is it any wonder that our apprehension of wider realities is confined to moments of physical and psychological trauma, to Near Death Experiences, to entheogen induced enhancements?
Is there any wonder that most common thing the naive individual says when they confront these wider perceptions, "we have no words?" Of course we have no words. How can an infant describe to an adult it's experience. It has no words! But does this mean it cannot develop the words? Does this mean the experiences of the right brain are destined to be indescribable, noetic, and untouchable by the linear left brain.
Well, as a practicing mystic and someone who spent a lot of time developing the right brain by answer is an unequivocal no. You can develop the right brain. You can connect it, as an equal, to the left brain, and you can move forward with a sophisticated analysis and science grounded not in a dictatorial brain but in a balanced left/right that will lead, if I may be forgiven for the prosaic conclusion, to an entirely new world of scientific knowledge of the created cosmos.
Note
"Time tube" image from my Book of Life: Ascension and the Divine World Order
Further Reading
Sharp, Michael (2006). The Book of Light: The Nature of God, the Structure of Consciousness, and the Universe Within You.
Sharp, Michael (2007). My Mystical Big Toe: A Strong Theory of Consciousness and Creation
Sharp, Michael (2008). Entheogens. The SpiritWiki: http://www.thespiritwiki.com/index.php/Entheogens [Accessed: March 17, 2008]
References
Grof, Stanislav (1985). Beyond the Brain: Birth, Death, and Transcendence in Psychotherapy. New York. SUNY Press.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Ascension, Atlantis, Awakening and THE SPHERE
As above in consciousness, so below in matterTM
So a few days ago I had the dubious pleasure of watching a film called The Sphere (1998) with Dustin Hoffman, Sharon Stone, and Samuel L. Jackson. The movie is about a crew of people who go down into the ocean to find a spaceship buried in three hundred years of coral growth. , you can imagine their surprise when they realize the ship is from their own future, everybody is dead, and there's this big, pulsating sphere in the center of the space ship.
What are they to do, they wonder?
Well, this is a Hollywood movie so they aren't very long in their wondering before "things" begin to happen.
Accidents start to happen.
Monsters start to appear.
Fires start burn.
People begin to die.
Why?
Well as the characters begin to find out just as all the last of the low paid actors are getting brutally killed, it's because the sphere gives them this magical ability to manifest their thoughts.
Now how cool is that!!!
Think of something and there it is!!!!! Or as I like to say, "as above in consciousness, so below in matter."
You think they'd be excited by that, but there not. It's not a happy show.
The problem with this amazing genie in the bottle?
Well, the characters are the problem.
You see...
The thoughts of the primitive humans are so full of, anger, hatred, and other nasty negative stuff that all they can manage to accomplish with this amazingly wonderful divine power is negative, violent, death (and I thought it was Hollywood)
Oh, and there's some ugly ones.
The scene with the fire blasting into Fielding's bare face was particularly horrifying. Shameful even. Terrible.
So what do the three intrepid explorers do?
Well, after killing everybody off, drugging each other, and generally acting like scared whittle wabbits, they manage to control their chaotic bundle of negative cogitation long enough to get themselves into a little sub marine back the surface. When there, Samuel's character mumbles some incoherent little threat about "forget it or die stupid mortals" and they all huddle around in this cute little group circle, confirm to each other how stupid they each are, and then hold hands and simply forget they ever had the power in the first place!!![If you could see my face, you'd be laughing with me now.]
As it turns out, it's just too much for them to handle.
They have "weak minds," as the "Jedi" like to say.
According to the screenwriters, we're apparently nothing more than worthless pieces of cosmic shit too stupid to simply think the bomb off, and too dim to simply think ourselves the surface.
Now this would be funny if it weren't so bloody serious and if you've read my books, you'll know why. In my Dossier of the Ascension I speak at great length about a thing I called the Atlantean fear. According to my Dossier the Atlantean fear is:
the fear of power. More specifically, it is the fear of having power. More specifically, it is the fear that some great power (God, Spirit, an Alien race) will smite you dead for taking control of your own life, claiming your co-creative power, and presuming to consider yourself an equal of God.Neat eh?
Here's a fear that I argue (in the Dossier and the Book of Life) is:
- genetically based .
- implanted by the destruction of Atlantis
- implanted to prevent us (ascension workers) from empowering,
- implanted to give the PTB something to use to beat us down.
Go figure.
ms
Monday, March 3, 2008
About this Blog
This is the weblog of me, Dr. Michael Sharp. I am a mystic, scientist (sociologist), cosmological traveler and world teacher and it is my job to help uplift the consciousness of this planet. I do that by providing tools and techniques that you can use to speed yourself, and this planet, along it's merry way to full awakening and empowerment. You can find out more about me by visiting my website, the online forums where I teach, or my SpiritWiki page which is where I put my more scientifically grounded thinking.
To this date I have written several books, aimed at a lay audience, that try to bring "high level" spiritual truths of creation down in grounded, easy to understand form. These books are based on my own mystical meandering and do not reference external work at all. That is, I write primarily for a lay audience and don't spend a lot of time linking my thinking with anything other than my own thinking. I do this on purpose in order to emphasize the interlinking nature of the concepts I develop. However, being a scientist, I also think it's important to connect what I'm doing with others.
Which brings me to this blog.
In this blog I am going take a more sophisticated, research oriented approach, to my work as a mystic. Here I won't worry so much about teaching a lay audience but will instead focus on developing the science of the Lightning Path. I'm not sure where this will take me. However I do know that this will make this blog a little thicker than my Lighting Path books, a little more academic, and, for better or worse, a little more obtuse. Don't worry though if you find this stuff uninteresting. Everything important that I have to say I put in the Lightning Path books. This stuff here is just supplemental stuff aimed at academic audiences.
Whatever your background is, I will say that you will find this blog a lot more spiritually useful if you've familiarized yourself with my spiritual writing. I do introduce a lot of new concepts in my spiritual books. I will try, as much as possible, to provide definitions (by linking to the SpiritWiki for example), but that will be no substitute for knowing the concepts as expressed in the books. If you wish, you can purchase a set of Lighting Path books for a hefty discount by clicking the previous link.
As an aside, I'll also use this blog to post announcements and the availability of new materials on my website so if you want an RSS feed that let's you know of new materials, this is it. Watch for future thematic blogs on my tarot system and other aspects of my spiritual teachings and scientific writings.
In La'kech
ms
To this date I have written several books, aimed at a lay audience, that try to bring "high level" spiritual truths of creation down in grounded, easy to understand form. These books are based on my own mystical meandering and do not reference external work at all. That is, I write primarily for a lay audience and don't spend a lot of time linking my thinking with anything other than my own thinking. I do this on purpose in order to emphasize the interlinking nature of the concepts I develop. However, being a scientist, I also think it's important to connect what I'm doing with others.
Which brings me to this blog.
In this blog I am going take a more sophisticated, research oriented approach, to my work as a mystic. Here I won't worry so much about teaching a lay audience but will instead focus on developing the science of the Lightning Path. I'm not sure where this will take me. However I do know that this will make this blog a little thicker than my Lighting Path books, a little more academic, and, for better or worse, a little more obtuse. Don't worry though if you find this stuff uninteresting. Everything important that I have to say I put in the Lightning Path books. This stuff here is just supplemental stuff aimed at academic audiences.
Whatever your background is, I will say that you will find this blog a lot more spiritually useful if you've familiarized yourself with my spiritual writing. I do introduce a lot of new concepts in my spiritual books. I will try, as much as possible, to provide definitions (by linking to the SpiritWiki for example), but that will be no substitute for knowing the concepts as expressed in the books. If you wish, you can purchase a set of Lighting Path books for a hefty discount by clicking the previous link.
As an aside, I'll also use this blog to post announcements and the availability of new materials on my website so if you want an RSS feed that let's you know of new materials, this is it. Watch for future thematic blogs on my tarot system and other aspects of my spiritual teachings and scientific writings.
In La'kech
ms
MMMMMMentations
So today I read through John Lilly's Center of the Cyclone, an interesting autobiographical account of one of the pioneers in LSD research. Quite fascinating. There were several things interesting about this book, some of which I will talk about in a future article on Set and Setting. What I want to bring forward here is his concept of the human body as a programmable bio-computer, his use of LSD to "reveal the program" and his use of "mentations" or mantras to reprogram the body. Of course we now know the importance of ideas and thoughts when programming our "computer." This is the foundation of neuro-linguistic programming, self help affirmation, and the mystical mantras we use to pry open the head and allow consciousness to flow inside. So nothing startling here.
What was interesting for me was reading this book and thinking about my Book of Light As those who have read the book know, it is cosmological and theological treatise on the nature of God, consciousness, and creation. It's also part of my Lighting Path. However, in the context of Lilly's conceptualizations, the book can also be seen as a high level book of "mentations" useful for reprogramming the Physical Unit (i.e., the human biocomputer as Lilly calls it). The book itself is a combination of poetry and prose designed to initiate a cosmic level rewiring of your mind/body. Very cool, and extremely powerful since the mentation that I provide is free of the detritus of Old World Spirituality and points your Physical Unit firmly in the direction of full activation.
Of course, I only had a vague idea of this at the time I wrote the book. When I wrote the book I was merely channeling information in and polishing it up as much as I could. However, after reading Lilly's book, I now realize the significance of the poetry in the book and I realize the significance of the culminating mentation/mantra which I have titled The Prayer and which I include in the back of the book. Interestingly enough, unlocking the full power of The Prayer requires that one read the book. Previous excursions are no guarantee that the words of The Prayer are understood properly.
Lilly's books is interesting and provides some useful information on technique, Freudian psychopathology, and mystical possibilities, but I don't recommend you get caught up in all the complexities and "levels" he identifies. Like I always say, it ain't rocket science. And if it sounds like rocket science, then you know it ain't true!! Integral nonsense if you ask me.
Those darn scientists. Always pouring on the bafflegab. I suppose it helps them justify their fat salaries amidst a sea of suffering and inequality, or perhaps is a buffer against the developmental ego assaults we all experience as a result of The System . No judgment though!! Everybody should live a comfortable life.
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