Can you know God with your brain?

The Economist tells us someone is trying to find that out in Monteral. The story goes: "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?the Christian notion of mystical union with God. The nuns (the researchers hope to recruit 15 in all) will also have their brains scanned using positron-emission tomography and functional magnetic-resonance imaging, the most powerful brain-imaging tools available."

The story is pretty good, as we'd expect from the Economist, and it covers a lot of interesting ground. Some of the past research and the descriptions of the researchers will leave you with a smile on your face.

Still, this is a serious topic and while fraught with some very real terchnical and methodological research challenges, it is fascinating to observe what people are doing in this area. Read for yourself, you won't regret it.  ⊕

On a clear day you can hear Indigo Ocean

From Hawaii comes a thoughtful piece that will make you think. It's from Indigo Ocean who tells us: "Yesterday I was reading mostly about death. In doing so, I was reminded very clearly that I am not this body. I chose this body. I love this body as I love the Earth that feeds and houses it. I use this body and it is essential for my learning experience here on Earth. But I am not this body. This body it doomed to death. I however am immortal."

Her post recounts the circumstances and context for the above quotation and she shares her thoughts about the role of bodies, souls, ancestors and linages. She makes some interesting observations that I tend to agree with. But go to Hawaii and read for yourself.  ⊕

The AMA has a policy on prayer

From the AMA Policy Finder comes this little gem:

"It is the policy of the AMA to:

(1) publicize the position that prayer as therapy should not delay access to traditional medical care;

(2) urge third party payors to consider reimbursement for prayer as therapy by any third party as inappropriate; and

(3) inform the federal government that fees for prayer as therapy should not be considered as a medically deductible expense. (Res. 118, I-90; reaffirmed: Sunset Report, I-00)"

I found this quite amusing in the light of my earlier post today on prayer.  ⊕

Unmanifest - A quality of pure consciousness

"When all created things have passed away:
This is that Life named the Unmanifest,
The Infinite! the All! the Uttermost.
Thither arriving none return.
That Life Is Mine, and I am there!"
The Bhagavad-Gita


Today my keyword is "unmanifest", one of the Qualities of Pure Consciousness.

What is in this world around us is that which is manifested and it is all local. The backdrop is all that is unmanifested. It just exists as pure potentiality, as something non-local awaiting a suitable desire to cause a manifestation, to cause something to become real to us.

The unmanifested does not seem very real to most of us, does it? I am curious about what signs we might see of this if we look for it.   ⊕

Prayer Influences the Success of in Vitro Fertilization-Embryo Transfer in humans

JRM Online published an interesting study back in 2001. I doubt a lot of people know about it. So here it is in abstact form. The question was whether prayer has an effect on in-vitro fertilization and subsequent pregnancy rates in women. The short answer is: Yes.

This is from the abstract:

"Objective: To assess the potential effect of intercessory prayer (IP) on pregnancy rates in women being treated with in vitro fertilization-embryo transfer (IVF-ET).

Study Design: Prospective, double-blind, randomized clinical trial in which patients and providers were not informed about the intervention. Statisticians and investigators were masked until all the data had been collected and clinical outcomes were known. The setting was an IVF-ET program at Cha Hospital, Seoul, Korea. IP was carried out by prayer groups in the United States, Canada and Australia. The investigators were at a tertiary medical center in the United States. The patients were 219 women aged 26-46 years who were consecutively treated with IVF-ET over a four-month period. Randomization was performed after stratification of variables in two groups: distant IP vs. no IP. The clinical pregnancy rates in the two groups were the main outcome measure.

Results: After clinical pregnancies were known, the data were unmasked to assess the effects of IP after assessment of multiple comparisons in a log-linear model. The IP group had a higher pregnancy rate as compared to the no-IP rate (50% vs. 26%, P=.0013). The IP group showed a higher implantation rate (16.3% vs. 8%, P=.0005). Observed effects were independent of clinical or laboratory providers and clinical variables.

Conclusion: A statistically significant difference was observed for the effect of IP on the outcome of IVF-ET, though the data should be interpreted as preliminary. (J Reprod Med 2001;46:781-787)"

As a postscript, let me leave you with some thoughts on what intercessory prayer is in the first place. This is from SpiritHome.com, a site devouted to spirituality and faith:

"Intercessory prayer is not the same as prayers for yourself, or for 'enlightenment', or for spiritual gifts, or for guidance, or any personal matter, or any glittering generality. Intercession is not just praying for someone else's needs. It is praying with the real hope and real intent that God would step in and act for the good of some specific other person(s) or other entity. It is trusting that God will act, even if it's not in the manner or timing we seek. God wants us to ask, even urgently. It is casting our weakness before God's strength, and (at its best) having a bit of God's passion burn in us."  ⊕

Simplicity - A quality of pure consciousness

"There is a simplicity born of shallowness, and falsely so called;
and there is a simplicity which is the costly outcome of the discipline of mind and heart and will.
Simplicity in preaching is properly the simplicity of the knowledge of God and of human beings.
To say of someone 'he preaches simply' is to say 'he walks with God.'"
Michael Ramsey, Archbishop of Canterbury

"From naive simplicity we arrive at more profound simplicity."
Albert Schweitzer (1875 - 1965)

I want to spend some time today holding in mind simplicity, one of the Qualities of Pure Consciousness. It's good practice. Why do I want to do that? Because simply holding a quality of pure consciousness in my mind puts my attention to it. Putting attention to something is the first step in manifestation. Everything that exists and ever existed had its beginning in an idea, a notion, a desire. In other words: attention.

Merely having the desire starts the inherent mechanics of its manifestation. Then we need to step out of the way and detach ourselves from the outcome. We can’t second guess what will happen. If it is a good idea, we will like the outcome. In a sense, we can set ourselves up for an endless chain of pleasant surprises; some call them miracles. Here's our recipe, then:

Think, detach and have a miraculous life.

It's worth the time, I need the practice. As my marital arts master used to say:

'Learning requires time,
time requires patience,
patience teaches one to progress wisely.'  ⊕

The hidden cost of obesity is about to hit us square in the wallet

Health Day reports:
"By 2020, roughly one in five health-care dollars spent on people aged 50 to 69 years old could be for obesity-related medical problems. That's up 50 percent from 2000, according to a Rand Corp. report.

The nation's expanding waistline also will result in higher disability rates among middle-aged and older Americans, the authors predict.

"The continuing weight gain in America will erode health gains that were attained through better medical care," says study author Roland Sturm, a Rand Health senior economist.

The analysis appears in the March issue of Health Affairs.

The Rand report coincides with the release of new data underscoring the human toll of obesity. Poor diet and physical inactivity caused 400,000 deaths in 2000, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Tuesday.

Only tobacco use caused more deaths -- 435,000 in 2000. Yet tobacco fatalities rose just 9 percent from 1990, while deaths caused by poor eating and a sedentary lifestyle jumped 33 percent over the same period.

That report appears in the March 10 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association."

But there's more:
"Obesity is defined as a ratio of weight and height known as body mass index (BMI). A BMI of 30 or higher is considered obese. That's at least 30 pounds overweight for a woman of average height and 35 to 40 pounds above ideal weight for man of average height.

Severely obese people -- those with a BMI of at least 35 -- are more than twice as likely as people of normal weight to be in fair or poor health, the study found. They suffer about twice as many chronic medical conditions as trimmer Americans.

They also pose the greatest financial challenge to the nation's health-care system. Severely obese Americans generate 60 percent higher health-care costs than normal weight individuals. Even moderately obese men and women boost health-care costs by 18 percent and 31 percent, respectively."

There's no meaningful response from policy makers anywhere. In USA, they're shutting the door on obesity lawsuits. And don't think this is a US of A only problem. It's not. Look around the industrialized part of the world and you'll see the same obesity trend.

So what's needed? Here's what I think: We need meaningful education about nutrition, legislation to prevent overloading of the food available for sale with undesirable ingredients and some initiative from cunsumers.   ⊕

Total potential of natural law

"Success doesn't necessarily make you a happy person. . . .
but without the confidence and security that comes from being totally happy,
I believe you cannot achieve your true potential and ultimate success."
Jinger Heath, Words of Women Quotations for Success (1997)

"We shall never understand the natural environment until we see it as a living organism.
Land can be healthy or sick, fertile or barren, rich or poor, lovingly nurtured or bled white.
Our present attitudes and laws governing the ownership and use of land represent an abuse of the concept of private property....
Today you can murder land for private profit.
You can leave the corpse for all to see and nobody calls the cops."
Paul Brooks, The Pursuit of Wilderness (1971)

Today, I will go on with my day in contemplation of what it means to have or to be a total potential of natural law, one of the Qualities of Pure Consciousness. This is a blend of two ideas, isn’t it? Total potential and natural law. Thus, the two quotations today.

Total potential is a different way of saying all possibilities, the first quality we looked at. The unified field, i.e., the backdrop of the cosmos, is pure potentiality embodying a total potential for manifesting all possibilities. This is being in its most basic form. And to recap, the manifestations come about through the expression of a desire. Within the desire are all the mechanics for its manifestation. Manifestations will occur where no boundaries exist. (You knew there was a hitch, didn’t you?)

These boundaries can be our own interpretations, evaluations and judgments. This is why you hear so much about setting up an intention (i.e., a desire) and then detaching yourself from the outcome. The intention or desire has all the mechanics of its manifestation within itself. Step out of the way and let it work itself out. If you interfere by introducing your own expressed judgment, evaluation or interpretation, you will most likely create boundaries and road blocks. Why? Because the universe is infinitely wiser than you or I.

It is presumptuous and unwise to second guess it. Just because you desire something, doesn’t mean that it is a wise thing for you to get it. It’s probably a good idea to just become a silent witness to the events’ unfolding and to take your guidance from the universe.

How do you become a silent witness? Through the practice of meditation. You or I or anyone can enjoy the total potential of natural law. If we learn how to meditate. I try to meditate every day. On days I miss my sitting, I often carry a sense of loss with me. Not strongly in the sense that it is debilitating, but it is there as an encouragement to not miss it again.  ⊕

Uni-dimensional benefits or Why you can't leave nutrition in the hands of corporations

From Times Online comes this story: McDonald's salad is more fattening than a burger
: "A chicken Caesar salad with dressing and croutons contains 425 calories and 21.4g of fat, compared with 253 calories and 7.7g of fat in a standard hamburger. Add a portion of fries to your burger and the calorie count climbs to 459, but is still less fatty than the salad at 16.7g.

McDonald's said that without the creamy sauce and croutons, the fat falls away, but so does the taste, unless you opt for balsamic (73 calories and 2g of fat).

Free of dressing, a McDonald's chicken Caesar has only 222 calories but still has more fat than the burger. 'It's the Italian cheese', explained a spokeswoman. "

What's going on here? Salads were supposed to be good for you, weren't they? Well,corporations don't care about health, they care about business. If health is good for business, they'll join. But notice how they join.

The burger business is falling off. If it weren't for that, we wouldn't have the salad choice. But what we are offered is the uni-dimensional benefit of salads; the salad part of the salad dish. Then the dish quickly gets ruined by a salad dressing that's a nutritionists nightmare or with cheese or whatever. Nutritionally, there is no gain for the consumer.

This condition is common across the board: granola bars use hydrogenated oils, soups have as much salt as sea water and most processed foods are laced with frightening amounts of salt and sugar period. And MSG if you look at the labels (which you should).

Fat makes food taste good because a lot of things in food are soluble only in fat. The fat brings things out for our taste buds to experience. Fat is also cheap like salt and sugar.

Processed food is formulated in labs. Then the technicians do 'research' and taste tests. 'Is this better than that?' they ask. The testers get a bite of each and give a score. One bite. Try taking on taste of seawater. Tastes not too bad. Try drinking a glass of it. You'll be sick.

You can see how it works, now: Score too low in the lab? Add salt, sugar, fat or MSG. Score's go up, your health goes down. They don't care because their revenues go up and the health care costs are diluted across all tax payers. Besides, they say, you have a choice. Well, they're right - you do have a choice, but they're not helping.

Lab tests are doomed to fail us when done this way.

But wait, it gets worse. Our collective addicition to salt, fat and sugar requires the technicians to up the dosages to be perceived 'tastier'. Do you see where this is leading us? It's a vicious spiral.

We only have one real weapon as consumers: Stop buying this nonsense the processors are pumping out and start eating more fresh everything. The processors will get the message eventually. Call their bluff, exercise your options.

It would be a help if we got the snack bars, vending machines and fast food chains out of our schools. We're just growing addicts for the processors to live off of for years to come.

How sick is that?  ⊕

Environmental Consequences of Computers

Over at mercola.com, Dr. Joseph Mercola points us to a study on the Environmental Consequences of Computers. Current computers (avg. weight 53 lbs including monitor) require over 10 times their weight in fossil fuels in the manufacturing process. The average car or fridge requires only one to two times their weight in fossil fuel energy.

Whatever the energy consumption is, this reinforces my thinking that the solution is more technology not less. Only by improving our technology can we hope to make the manufacture of computers and other things more energy efficient.

Notice that energy efficiency must be measured not just in terms of operating requirements, but must include manufacturing and distribution as well. This concept is known as the 'Total Cost of Ownership'. We will never be truly energy conscious unless we start discussing our consumption in the context of total costs.  ⊕

Nutrition & the Immune System: Good Carbs vs Red Meat and Fat

This post, Good Carbs vs Red Meat and Fat, over at 'Nutrition & the Immune System' blog is spot on. Like the author, I agree that the Atkins diet has been valuable because it opens the door to eating more fresh fruits and vegetables.

A lot of what is wrong with today's diet for a lot of people is simply the composition. One good rule of thumb is to eat from the walls of the supermarkets, not from the ailes.

Cutting back on processed foods of any kind will lead to a drastic reduction in empty calories from fat and sugar. It will also reduce the salt intake.

The biggest obstacles to dietary reform are our eating habits. Food plays a complex role in our lives. Telling someone to give up a dish or a food item is often like asking them to quit smoking.

I encourage anyone who is grappling with food choices to read Rudolph M. Ballentine's book 'Radical Healing'. His own harrowing experience shows with all necessary clarity what some people are up against and what remarkable results can be experienced from simple changes in what we eat.  ⊕

Tis been a long week

From the blogYour eyes, Your ears, Your smile, Your touch comes a heartfelt sigh for a week now past.

The author, Frank Zilinyi, is a 'Candidate for the Roman Catholic Diaconate pursuing his time of discernment'. He just started his seminary and is being forced to examine very closely why he is there, why he is doing this. He'll also need a mentor, but no-one is available for four years!

I know nothing about the program he is embarking on, but I see many parallels in what I am pursuing on the path to become a healer.

I am preparing for Healing Touch Level 4 in Banff, AB, which runs March 18-21. I spent the weekend reading a lot of material and thinking quite alot about what I am embarking on here and my reasons for doing so.

First and foremost, I and a lot of other students, wonder 'Why me'? Or more properly 'How me'? Can ordinary people become healers? Isn't this just for special people with unique talents and strange perceptions?

In the end, my answers come from my own experience giving and receiving treatments. Anyone can do this; we all have the power to heal ourselves and others. As with so many other things, the abilities ofthe healer is more a function of personal growth and development than anything else. A talent squandered is no match for a hard earned competency.

Comforting as that realization may be, I often feel overwhelmed by all the things involved in energy based healing. I need to get comfortable with the idea that I can play a role with whatever I absorb even if I don't, and most likely never will, have it 'all'.

And I will have 'something' of this 'all', a lot of 'something'. The Level 4 course is the kick-off for an intensive two year stretch or more towards certification.

In the first year I have to fulfill a number of formal requirements and go through a mentorship program. Among other things, I must document at least 100 treatments and write a case study.

Fortunately for me, I don't have to wait four years to find an available mentor. That said, with the increase we're seing in HT students mentors could become in short supply in this field, too.

Frank offers a beautiful prayer to his as yet undetermined mentor.


'My friend
fellow traveler,
hold a lamp by the darkened road
that I might walk a step or two by your side
and inquire
and discourse
and listen for the Christ
through the instrument of your person
I think I hear the masters call to serve
help me to learn if I hear aright.'


Now that he has put that out there, I suspect Frank will be allright.

I will be following his personal journey as he reports on it. Good luck, Frank.

I will say a prayer, too, as I haven't found my mentor yet either. It's a good beginning for a new week.
  ⊕

Parents' Example Vital in Children's Eating Habits

The
Journal of Public Health March 2004 reports that: "The parents of children who aren't eating the recommended five portions of fruits and vegetables a day may not be setting them a good example, according to new research published on Sunday.

Youngsters have innate likes and dislikes and can be incredibly stubborn about what they will and will not eat, but a study of the behavioral aspects of their eating habits showed parental example has a major influence.

'Parental consumption was the strongest predictor of children's consumption,' Lucy Cooke, a psychologist at University College London, said in an interview. 'Setting an example is tremendously influential.'

What the parents consumed was the biggest influence on children's diets but eating together as a family, breast feeding and introducing a variety of fruits and vegetables early were also important factors."

Goes to show: Parents still have a role to play. It can't just be left to TV and the fast food chains.
  ⊕