Techniques of Consciousness Change – Robert Anton Wilson (Lecture)

Robert Anton Wilson speaks about the riddle of consciousness and how the human nervous system locks the entire body together, including the mind.

He describes the brain and how it reacts to our cultural programming, our reality tunnel, how our nervous system reprograms itself, and how we can crack our minds open through directed thought.

Lecture Topics Covered:

The Government And Drugs
Yoga And Other Techniques
Timothy Leary’s Eight-Circuit Model Of Psychological Types
Elements Of The First Four Circuits
Techniques For Changing Imprinting
The Top Four Circuits
Programming Your Own Experience
The Church Committee And Space Migration

We live in our fantasies and endure our realities. – Robert Anton Wilson

Acid Casualty a Myth: No Link Found Between Psychedelics and Psychosis (Study)

Acid Casualty a Myth: No Link Found Between Psychedelics and Psychosis (Study) | Third Monk

Psychedelics and Psychosis

Data from population surveys in the United States challenge public fears that psychedelic drugs such as LSD can lead to psychosis and other mental-health conditions and to increased risk of suicide, two studies have found.

In the first study, clinical psychologists Pål-Ørjan Johansen and Teri Suzanne Krebs, both at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, scoured data from the US National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), an annual random sample of the general population, and analysed answers from more than 135,000 people who took part in surveys from 2008 to 2011.

Of those, 14% described themselves as having used at any point in their lives any of the three ‘classic’ psychedelics: LSD, psilocybin (the active ingredient in so-called magic mushrooms) and mescaline (found in the peyote and San Pedro cacti).

The researchers found that individuals in this group were not at increased risk of developing 11 indicators of mental health problems such as schizophrenia, psychosis, depression, anxiety disorders and suicide attempts. Their paper appears in the March issue of the Journal of Psychopharmacology.

The findings are likely to raise eyebrows. Fears that psychedelics can lead to psychosis date to the 1960s, with widespread reports of “acid casualties” in the mainstream news. But Krebs says that because psychotic disorders are relatively prevalent, affecting about one in 50 people, correlations can often be mistaken for causations.

Psychedelics are psychologically intense, and many people will blame anything that happens for the rest of their lives on a psychedelic experience. – Krebs

The three substances Johansen and Krebs looked at all act through the brain’s serotonin 2A receptor. The authors did not include ketamine, PCP, MDMA, fly agaric mushrooms, DMT or other drugs that fall broadly into the category of hallucinogens, because they act on other receptors and have different modes of biochemical action. Ketamine and PCP, for example, act on the NMDA receptor and are both known to be addictive and to cause severe physical harms, such as damage to the bladder.

Absolutely, people can become addicted to drugs like ketamine or PCP, and the effects can be very destructive. We restricted our study to the ‘classic psychedelics’ to clarify the findings. – Johansen

The ‘Acid Casualty’ Myth: Psychedelics and Psychosis

“This study assures us that there were not widespread ‘acid casualties’ in the 1960s,” says Charles Grob, a paediatric psychiatrist at the University of California, Los Angeles. He has long has advocated the therapeutic use of psychedelics, such as administering psilocybin to treat anxiety in terminal-stage cancer. But he has concerns about Krebs and Johansen’s overall conclusions, he says, because individual cases of adverse effects use can and do occur.

For example, people may develop hallucinogen persisting perception disorder (HPPD), a ‘trip’ that never seems to end, involving incessant distortions in the visual field, shimmering lights and coloured dots. “I’ve seen a number of people with these symptoms following a psychedelic experience, and it can be a very serious condition,” says Grob.

Krebs and Johansen, however, point to studies that have found symptoms of HPPD in people who have never used psychedelics.

The second of the new two studies, also published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, looked at 190,000 NSDUH respondents from 2008 to 2012. It also found that the classic psychedelics were not associated with adverse mental health outcomes. In addition, it found that people who had used LSD and psilocybin had lower lifetime rates of suicidal thoughts and attempts.

“We are not claiming that no individuals have ever been harmed by psychedelics,” says author Matthew Johnson, an associate professor in the Behavioral Pharmacology Research Unit at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.

“Anecdotes about acid casualties can be very powerful — but these instances are rare,” he says. At the population level, he says, the data suggest that the harms of psychedelics “have been overstated”.

> No Link Found Between Psychosis and Psychedelics | Nature

Smarter People Stay Up Late, Do More Drugs, and Have More Sex (Study)

Smarter People Stay Up Late, Do More Drugs, and Have More Sex (Study) | Third Monk image 2

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Sex. Drugs. Late nights.

You may be reading the first four words of my memoir. Or you could be simply listing three things that show signs of being a genius, according to various studies. There’s evidence that shows that if you’re spending less of your nights hitting the books and more time smoking weed and getting laid until 3am, then you’re probably wiser than the rest of us.

Researchers in England have found that students studying at prestigious universities such as Oxford and Cambridge spend more on sex toys than their peers at other universities. Cambridge and Oxford’s sex toy sales on just one website (Lovehoney.co.uk, who funded the research) totaled a staggering $31, 461. No word on what products they ordered, nor whether they kept their glasses on while they used them.

“The correlation probably has something to do with the open-mindedness that comes with intelligence,” says Annalisa Rose, 23, who works at Honey, a high-end sex shop in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

I think that the ability to engage in an open sex life comes with the abilities of introspection and logical thought, and those require some level of intelligence. If we’re talking about an open sex life that comes from an emotionally healthy place, sexual mores are mostly made up anyway and intelligent people can rationalize past them. – Annalisa Rose

hunter-s-thompson-sex-drugs-hunter-thompson-fear-and-loathin-demotivational-poster- smarter people

The 2nd part of our “genius trifecta” is drugs.

Smarter people are more likely to smoke pot or do a line than the average simpleton. This is because, according to many studies, a smarter person isn’t more likely to choose the “smarter” choice of not doing drugs but is instead more likely to pursue the more evolutionary novel choice, one that would inherently expand their horizons. Smarter people don’t necessarily ‘think smarter’ – they simply rationalize where they’re supposed to “feel.” So while a less intelligent person is less likely to pick up a heroin habit in the first place, the more intelligent person will rationalize it. (This explains every good jazz album ever made and also every Christian rock album ever made in the same sentence.)

So while a less intelligent person is less likely to pick up a heroin habit in the first place, the more intelligent person will rationalize it. (This explains every good jazz album ever made and also every Christian rock album ever made in the same sentence.)

A 2010 study that ran in Psychology Today (what, you don’t subscribe?) also states that those with an IQ of 125 or higher are exponentially more likely to use drugs. Says the study:

Net of sex, religion, religiosity, marital status, number of children, education, earnings, depression, satisfaction with life, social class at birth, mother’s education, and father’s education, British children who are more intelligent before the age of 16 are more likely to consume psychoactive drugs at age 42 than less intelligent children.

…there is a clear monotonic association between childhood general intelligence and adult consumption of psychoactive drugs. “Very bright” individuals (with IQs above 125) are roughly three-tenths of a standard deviation more likely to consume psychoactive drugs than “very dull” individuals (with IQs below 75).

Late nights, too, play a leading role in that of the smart person: an academic paper entitled “Why The Night Owl Is More Intelligent,” published in the journal Psychology And Individual Differences, says that for several millennia humans have been largely conditioned to work during the day and sleep at night.

Those that buck the trend, the paper suggests “…that more intelligent individuals may be more likely to acquire and espouse evolutionarily novel values and preferences than less intelligent individuals.”

The paper goes on to say that those who are more liberal and more inclined towards atheism are more likely to be intelligent, too.

Essentially, if you’re more of a forward thinker, if you’re trying something new and pushing your boundaries, you’re most likely more intelligent. This doesn’t mean that Toronto mayor Rob Ford is some kind of lucid genius, however. It merely suggests that smarter people are more likely to have more sex, do drugs, and stay up late.

So if you’re getting laid at 3am on Sunday morning and have a full bowl packed beside the bed and you aren’t going to church the next day, you’re probably a genius.

Either that or you’re incredibly good at living your best life.

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> Smarter People and Their Habits | Esquire

Neuroscientist Paints Sumi-e Style Brain Art (Gallery)

Neuroscientist Paints Sumi-e Style Brain Art (Gallery) | Third Monk image 1

Neuroscientist Greg Dunn decided to trade in his microscope to become a professional artist. 

He still uses a microscope in his art though. Meta much? What gives! Greg is an interesting dude, and his brain art offers deep food for thought when it comes to interconnectivity and the fractal nature of the universe.

The patterns of branching neurons he saw through the microscope reminded him of the aesthetic principles in Sumi-e art, which he admires. Dunn realized neurons could be painted in this sumi-e (minimalist ink wash painting) style to wonderful effect.

The microscopic world belongs in the world of Asian art. There’s no distinction between painting a landscape of a forest and a landscape of the brain. – Greg Dunn

Enjoy his beautiful creations!

 Sumi-e Style: Brain Art

Cortical Columns

Cortical-Columns[4] Brain Art

It’s almost a zen quality to the branching pattern of a neuron that I was interested in capturing initially. – Greg Dunn

Basket and Pyramidals

Basket-and-Pyramidals-small[1] Brain Art

Gold Cortex II

Gold-Cortex-II

Cortical Circuitboard

Cortical-Circuitboard[2]

Electron Micrograph of Micro-etching

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Brainbow Hippocampus in Blue

Microetched-Hippocampus

The image above was inspired by the Brainbow process, a neuroscience technique for coloring neighboring neurons by combining colored fluorescent proteins.

Brainbow Hippocampus Variations

Brainbow-Hippocampus-compilation

Glia and Blood Vessels

Glia-and-Blood-Vessels

Glial Flare

NG2-flare Brain Art

Spinal Cord

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 Art has the power to capture people’s emotions and inspire awe [in a way] that a lot of charts and graphs don’t have. – Greg Dunn

Dazzling Images of the Brain Created by Neuroscientist-Artist | Live Science

Wanderers – Short Film Narrated by Carl Sagan (Video)

Wanderers - Short Film Narrated by Carl Sagan (Video) | Third Monk image 2

This short film provides an inspiring look into the future, where humans visit other planets in the galaxy. The narration by Carl Sagan, philosophically explores our natural instinct to go far beyond our starting point.

The film is a vision of our humanity’s future expansion into the Solar System. Although admittedly speculative, the visuals in the film are all based on scientific ideas and concepts of what our future in space might be like, if it ever happens.

All the locations depicted in the film are recreations of actual places in the Solar System, built from real photos and map data where possible. – Erik Wernquist, Filmmaker

miranda-in-wanderers

WANDERERS

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What a Shaman Sees in a Mental Hospital

What a Shaman Sees in a Mental Hospital | Third Monk

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The Shamanic View of Mental Illness

In the shamanic view, mental illness signals “the birth of a healer,” explains Malidoma Patrice Somé. Thus, mental disorders are spiritual emergencies, spiritual crises, and need to be regarded as such to aid the healer in being born.

What those in the West view as mental illness, the Dagara people regard as “good news from the other world.” The person going through the crisis has been chosen as a medium for a message to the community that needs to be communicated from the spirit realm.

Mental disorder, behavioral disorder of all kinds, signal the fact that two obviously incompatible energies have merged into the same field. – Dr. Somé

These disturbances result when the person does not get assistance in dealing with the presence of the energy from the spirit realm.

One of the things Dr. Somé encountered when he first came to the United States in 1980 for graduate study was how this country deals with mental illness. When a fellow student was sent to a mental institute due to “nervous depression,” Dr. Somé went to visit him.

I was so shocked. That was the first time I was brought face to face with what is done here to people exhibiting the same symptoms I’ve seen in my village. – Dr. Somé

What struck Dr. Somé was that the attention given to such symptoms was based on pathology, on the idea that the condition is something that needs to stop. This was in complete opposition to the way his culture views such a situation. As he looked around the stark ward at the patients, some in straitjackets, some zoned out on medications, others screaming, he observed to himself…

So this is how the healers who are attempting to be born are treated in this culture. What a loss! What a loss that a person who is finally being aligned with a power from the other world is just being wasted.

Another way to say this, which may make more sense to the Western mind, is that we in the West are not trained in how to deal or even taught to acknowledge the existence of psychic phenomena, the spiritual world. In fact, psychic abilities are denigrated. When energies from the spiritual world emerge in a Western psyche, that individual is completely unequipped to integrate them or even recognize what is happening. The result can be terrifying. Without the proper context for and assistance in dealing with the breakthrough from another level of reality, for all practical purposes, the person is insane. Heavy dosing with anti-psychotic drugs compounds the problem and prevents the integration that could lead to soul development and growth in the individual who has received these energies.

On the mental ward, Dr Somé saw a lot of “beings” hanging around the patients, “entities” that are invisible to most people but that shamans and psychics are able to see. “They were causing the crisis in these people,” he says. It appeared to him that these beings were trying to get the medications and their effects out of the bodies of the people the beings were trying to merge with, and were increasing the patients’ pain in the process. “The beings were acting almost like some kind of excavator in the energy field of people. They were really fierce about that. The people they were doing that to were just screaming and yelling,” he said. He couldn’t stay in that environment and had to leave.

In the Dagara tradition, the community helps the person reconcile the energies of both worlds–”the world of the spirit that he or she is merged with, and the village and community.” That person is able then to serve as a bridge between the worlds and help the living with information and healing they need. Thus, the spiritual crisis ends with the birth of another healer.

The other world’s relationship with our world is one of sponsorship.More often than not, the knowledge and skills that arise from this kind of merger are a knowledge or a skill that is provided directly from the other world. – Dr. Somé

The beings who were increasing the pain of the inmates on the mental hospital ward were actually attempting to merge with the inmates in order to get messages through to this world. The people they had chosen to merge with were getting no assistance in learning how to be a bridge between the worlds and the beings’ attempts to merge were thwarted. The result was the sustaining of the initial disorder of energy and the aborting of the birth of a healer.

“The Western culture has consistently ignored the birth of the healer,” states Dr. Somé. “Consequently, there will be a tendency from the other world to keep trying as many people as possible in an attempt to get somebody’s attention. They have to try harder.” The spirits are drawn to people whose senses have not been anesthetized. “The sensitivity is pretty much read as an invitation to come in,” he notes.

Those who develop so-called mental disorders are those who are sensitive, which is viewed in Western culture as oversensitivity. Indigenous cultures don’t see it that way and, as a result, sensitive people don’t experience themselves as overly sensitive. In the West, “it is the overload of the culture they’re in that is just wrecking them,” observes Dr. Somé. The frenetic pace, the bombardment of the senses, and the violent energy that characterize Western culture can overwhelm sensitive people.

Schizophrenia and Foreign Energy

With schizophrenia, there is a special “receptivity to a flow of images and information, which cannot be controlled,” stated Dr. Somé. “When this kind of rush occurs at a time that is not personally chosen, and particularly when it comes with images that are scary and contradictory, the person goes into a frenzy.”

What is required in this situation is first to separate the person’s energy from the extraneous foreign energies, by using shamanic practice (what is known as a “sweep”) to clear the latter out of the individual’s aura. With the clearing of their energy field, the person no longer picks up a flood of information and so no longer has a reason to be scared and disturbed, explains Dr. Somé.

Then it is possible to help the person align with the energy of the spirit being attempting to come through from the other world and give birth to the healer. The blockage of that emergence is what creates problems. “The energy of the healer is a high-voltage energy,” he observes. “When it is blocked, it just burns up the person. It’s like a short-circuit. Fuses are blowing. This is why it can be really scary, and I understand why this culture prefers to confine these people. Here they are yelling and screaming, and they’re put into a straitjacket. That’s a sad image.” Again, the shamanic approach is to work on aligning the energies so there is no blockage, “fuses” aren’t blowing, and the person can become the healer they are meant to be.

It needs to be noted at this point, however, that not all of the spirit beings that enter a person’s energetic field are there for the purposes of promoting healing. There are negative energies as well, which are undesirable presences in the aura. In those cases, the shamanic approach is to remove them from the aura, rather than work to align the discordant energies

Alex: Crazy in the USA, Healer in Africa

To test his belief that the shamanic view of mental illness holds true in the Western world as well as in indigenous cultures, Dr. Somé took a mental patient back to Africa with him, to his village. I was prompted by my own curiosity to find out whether there’s truth in the universality that

I was prompted by my own curiosity to find out whether there’s truth in the universality that mental illness could be connected with an alignment with a being from another world. – Dr. Somé

Alex was an 18-year-old American who had suffered a psychotic break when he was 14. He had hallucinations, was suicidal, and went through cycles of dangerously severe depression. He was in a mental hospital and had been given a lot of drugs, but nothing was helping. “The parents had done everything–unsuccessfully,” says Dr. Somé. “They didn’t know what else to do.”

With their permission, Dr. Somé took their son to Africa. “After eight months there, Alex had become quite normal, Dr. Somé reports. He was even able to participate with healers in the business of healing; sitting with them all day long and helping them, assisting them in what they were doing with their clients . . . . He spent about four years in my village.” Alex stayed by choice, not because he needed more healing. He felt, “much safer in the village than in America.”

To bring his energy and that of the being from the spiritual realm into alignment, Alex went through a shamanic ritual designed for that purpose, although it was slightly different from the one used with the Dagara people. “He wasn’t born in the village, so something else applied. But the result was similar, even though the ritual was not literally the same,” explains Dr. Somé. The fact that aligning the energy worked to heal Alex demonstrated to Dr. Somé that the connection between other beings and mental illness is indeed universal.

After the ritual, Alex began to share the messages that the spirit being had for this world. Unfortunately, the people he was talking to didn’t speak English (Dr. Somé was away at that point). The whole experience led, however, to Alex’s going to college to study psychology. He returned to the United States after four years because “he discovered that all the things that he needed to do had been done, and he could then move on with his life.”

The last that Dr. Somé heard was that Alex was in graduate school in psychology at Harvard. No one had thought he would ever be able to complete undergraduate studies, much less get an advanced degree.

Dr. Somé sums up what Alex’s mental illness was all about: “He was reaching out. It was an emergency call. His job and his purpose

He was reaching out. It was an emergency call. His job and his purpose was to be a healer. He said no one was paying attention to that.

After seeing how well the shamanic approach worked for Alex, Dr. Somé concluded that spirit beings are just as much an issue in the West as in his community in Africa. “Yet the question still remains, the answer to this problem must be found here, instead of having to go all the way overseas to seek the answer. There has to be a way in which a little bit of attention beyond the pathology of this whole experience leads to the possibility of coming up with the proper ritual to help people.

Longing for Spiritual Connection

A common thread that Dr. Somé has noticed in “mental” disorders in the West is “a very ancient ancestral energy that has been placed in stasis, that finally is coming out in the person.” His job then is to trace it back, to go back in time to discover what that spirit is. In most cases, the spirit is connected to nature, especially with mountains or big rivers, he says.

In the case of mountains, as an example to explain the phenomenon, “it’s a spirit of the mountain that is walking side by side with the person and, as a result, creating a time-space distortion that is affecting the person caught in it.” What is needed is a merger or alignment of the two energies, “so the person and the mountain spirit become one.” Again, the shaman conducts a specific ritual to bring about this alignment.

Dr. Somé believes that he encounters this situation so often in the United States because “most of the fabric of this country is made up of the energy of the machine, and the result of that is the disconnection and the severing of the past. You can run from the past, but you can’t hide from it.” The ancestral spirit of the natural world comes visiting.

It’s not so much what the spirit wants as it is what the person wants. The spirit sees in us a call for something grand, something that will make life meaningful, and so the spirit is responding to that. – Dr. Somé

That call, which we don’t even know we are making, reflects “a strong longing for a profound connection, a connection that transcends materialism and possession of things and moves into a tangible cosmic dimension. Most of this longing is unconscious, but for spirits, conscious or unconscious doesn’t make any difference.” They respond to either.

As part of the ritual to merge the mountain and human energy, those who are receiving the “mountain energy” are sent to a mountain area of their choice, where they pick up a stone that calls to them. They bring that stone back for the rest of the ritual and then keep it as a companion; some even carry it around with them. “The presence of the stone does a lot in tuning the perceptive ability of the person,” notes Dr. Somé. “They receive all kinds of information that they can make use of, so it’s like they get some tangible guidance from the other world as to how to live their life.”

When it is the “river energy,” those being called go to the river and, after speaking to the river spirit, find a water stone to bring back for the same kind of ritual as with the mountain spirit.

“People think something extraordinary must be done in an extraordinary situation like this,” he says. That’s not usually the case. Sometimes it is as simple as carrying a stone.

A Sacred Ritual Approach to Mental Illness

One of the gifts a shaman can bring to the Western world is to help people rediscover ritual, which is so sadly lacking.

The abandonment of ritual can be devastating. From the spiritual view, ritual is inevitable and necessary if one is to live. To say that ritual is needed in the industrialized world is an understatement. We have seen in my own people that it is probably impossible to live a sane life without it. – Dr. Somé in Ritual: Power, Healing, and Community.

Dr. Somé did not feel that the rituals from his traditional village could simply be transferred to the West, so over his years of shamanic work here, he has designed rituals that meet the very different needs of this culture. Although the rituals change according to the individual or the group involved, he finds that there is a need for certain rituals in general.

One of these involves helping people discover that their distress is coming from the fact that they are “called by beings from the other world to cooperate with them in doing healing work.” Ritual allows them to move out of the distress and accept that calling.

Another ritual need relates to initiation. In indigenous cultures all over the world, young people are initiated into adulthood when they reach a certain age. The lack of such initiation in the West is part of the crisis that people are in here, says Dr. Somé.

He urges communities to bring together “the creative juices of people who have had this kind of experience, in an attempt to come up with some kind of an alternative ritual that would at least begin to put a dent in this kind of crisis.”

Another ritual that repeatedly speaks to the needs of those coming to him for help entails making a bonfire, and then putting into the bonfire “items that are symbolic of issues carried inside the individuals . . . It might be the issues of anger and frustration against an ancestor who has left a legacy of murder and enslavement or anything, things that the descendant has to live with,” he explains.

If these are approached as things that are blocking the human imagination, the person’s life purpose, and even the person’s view of life as something that can improve, then it makes sense to begin thinking in terms of how to turn that blockage into a roadway that can lead to something more creative and more fulfilling. – Dr. Somé

The example of issues with an ancestors touches on rituals designed by Dr. Somé that address a serious dysfunction in Western society and in the process “trigger enlightenment” in participants. These are ancestral rituals, and the dysfunction they are aimed at is the mass turning-of-the-back on ancestors. Some of the spirits trying to come through, as described earlier, may be “ancestors who want to merge with a descendant in an attempt to heal what they weren’t able to do while in their physical body.”

“Unless the relationship between the living and the dead is in balance, chaos ensues,” he says. “The Dagara believe that, if such an imbalance exists, it is the duty of the living to heal their ancestors. If these ancestors are not healed, their sick energy will haunt the souls and psyches of those who are responsible for helping them.” The rituals focus on healing the relationship with our ancestors, both specific issues of an individual ancestor and the larger cultural issues contained in our past. Dr. Somé has seen extraordinary healing occur at these rituals.

Taking a sacred ritual approach to mental illness rather than regarding the person as a pathological case gives the person affected–and indeed the community at large–the opportunity to begin looking at it from that vantage point too, which leads to “a whole plethora of opportunities and ritual initiative that can be very, very beneficial to everyone present,” states. Dr. Somé.

Excerpted from: The Natural Medicine Guide to Schizophrenia, or The Natural Medicine Guide to Bi-polar Disorder, pages 178-189, Stephanie Marohn (featuring Malidoma Patrice Somé).

> Shamanic View of Mental Illness | Waking Times

4 Scientifically Proven Positive Psychological Benefits of Meditation

4 Scientifically Proven Positive Psychological Benefits of Meditation  | Third Monk image 2

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Speeds Up Brain Processing Potential

According to a research journal article published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience in February 2012, meditation can alter the geometry of the brain’s surface. There was a study done at UCLA involving 50 meditators and 50 controls that addressed a possible link between meditation and cortical gyrification, the pattern and degree of cortical folding that allows the brain to process faster. This study showed a positive correlation between the amount of gyrification in parts of the brain and the number of years of meditation for people, especially long-term meditators, compared to non-meditators.

This increased gyrification may reflect an integration of cognitive processes when meditating, since meditators are known to be introspective and contemplative, using certain portions of the brain in the process of meditation.

Loosens Our Neural Pathways

4 Best Scientifically Proven Benefits Of Meditation

Rebecca Gladding, M.D. explains in an article published in May 2013 Psychology Today, how the brain functions better with meditation, and the positive affects it has on the brain, the longer you meditate.

Basically, Gladding explains how the brain can be molded by meditation. Specifically, the connection to our fear center and our “Me” Center (place where the brain constantly reflects back to you) wither away by meditating on a regular basis.

This loosening up lessens our feelings of anxiety, because the neural pathways linking our Me Center to our fear decreases. The unhelpful feelings of anxiety become regulated, meaning, sufficiently ignored, which enhances better neural pathways to form. New neural pathways include improved assessment and empathetic responses. The important thing that Gladding also mentions is that to maintain the benefits of meditation, you must keep meditating because:

the brain can very easily revert back to its old ways if you are not vigilant.

Reduces the Risk of Heart Disease

4 Best Scientifically Proven Benefits Of Meditation (1)

A large cardiovascular study was done and published in November 2012, in the journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes.

There were 201 people with coronary heart disease given two choices:

(1) Take a health education class promoting improved diet and exercise.
(2) Take a class on transcendental meditation.

Researchers studied these participants for five years and discovered something interesting. Those that chose (2) the meditation class had 48% reduction to the overall risk of heart attack, stroke and death.

Meditations Improves Memory Recall

New research shows that meditation can further enhance the abilities of memory recall.

Catherine Kerr is a researcher at the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging and the Osher Research Center. She has found that those that practice meditation could adjust their brains waves better. They could screen out distractions and increase productivity faster than those that did not meditate. Less distractions gives room for the brain to integrate new information. This slight change in brain adjustment can dramatically aid in memory recall.

Kerr explained more in an article called, Meditation’s Effects on Emotion Shown to Persist, published in June 2013 at Psych Central

Mindfulness meditation has been reported to enhance numerous mental abilities, including rapid memory recall. Our discovery that mindfulness meditators more quickly adjusted the brain wave that screens out distraction could explain their superior ability to rapidly remember and incorporate new facts. – Catherine Kerr

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> Proven Benefits of Meditating | Thinking Humanity

Artist Draws Psychedelic Self-Portraits While On Different Drugs (Gallery)

Artist Draws Psychedelic Self-Portraits While On Different Drugs (Gallery) | Third Monk image 17

Bryan Lewis Saunders likes to take drugs, both legal and illegal, and then draw pictures of himself. The results are strikingly different from drug to drug, and they vary from beautiful to grotesque, abstract and just plain bizarre.

[I’m most interested in] things that are still a mystery to us all. – Bryan Lewis Saunders

Bryan devised an experiment in which every day he took a different drug and drew himself under the influence. These psychedelic self-portraits are a window into Bryan’s different states of mind.

For more of Bryan’s self-portraits make sure to check out his website. Enjoy!

Psychedelic Self-Portraits

Abilify/Xanax/Ativan (dosage unknown in hospital)

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Psilocybin mushrooms (2 caps onset)

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1 sm glass of “real” absinthe (not the fake crap)

absinth

10mg Adderall

adderall

10mg Ambien

ambien

Bath Salts

BathSalts

15mg Buspar (snorted)

buspar

Butane honey oil (cannabis)

ButaneHoneyOil

1/2 gram cocaine

cocaine_

1 “bump” of crystal meth

crystalmeth

1 shot of Dilaudid/3 shots of morphine (in the ER with kidney stones)

dilaudid

DMT (during and after)

DMT

Hash (cannabis)

Hash

Heroin (snorted)

3db6eebc-cac3-46f7-b48c-e6d0ae8a619f (1)

7.5mg Hydrocodone/7.5mgOxycodone/3mg Xanax

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Marijuana

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Morphine IV (dosage unknown)

drug

Nicotine gum (after quitting smoking for two months)

2mgNicotineGum

20mg Valium

Valium

Salvia Divinorum

salvia

Nitrous Oxide / Valium I.V. (doseage unknown in hospital)

morphine

 

After experiencing drastic changes in my environment, I looked for other experiences that might profoundly affect my perception of self. – Bryan Lewis Saunders

30 Self-Portraits Drawn While the Artist Was Under the Influence of 30 Drugs | Alter Net

Study Confirms: LSD Still Awesome

Study Confirms: LSD Still Awesome | Third Monk image 1

LSD

The incredible therapeutic properties of LSD have once again been confirmed in a recent Swiss study.

The first therapeutic study on LSD to take place in 40 years specifically focused on treating anxiety associated with life-threatening illnesses. Psychotherapy was also used in conjunction with LSD to treat participants’ anxiety.

Amazingly, every single participant (out of 12) reported experiencing major decreases in anxiety levels due to the LSD-assisted psychotherapy. These decreases in anxiety persisted even 12 months after being administered the LSD. Furthermore, no negative effects were reported by any of the participants. The study was led by Peter Gasser, M.D., who stated:

…we had in 30 sessions (22 with full dose 200 μg LSD and 8 with placebo dose 20 μg LSD) no severe side effects such as psychotic experiences or suicidal crisis or flashbacks or severe anxieties (bad trips)…That means that we can show that LSD treatment can be safe when it is done in a carefully controlled clinical setting.

Subjects receiving 200 µg LSD and psychotherapy, compared to an active placebo of 20 µg LSD, experienced a reduction in anxiety. Because the reduction in anxiety was still present at a 12-month follow up, Gasser believes that LSD has incredible potential for treating a whole array of psychological conditions.

Researchers noted that one of the most important aspects of the study was that the participants were able to freely contemplate and discuss their experiences while under the effects of LSD, as well as after the trip had ended.

Psychedelics such as LSD, mescaline, and psilocybin do not cause brain damage and are considered by medical professionals to be non-addictive.  Over 30 million people currently living in the US have used LSD, psilocybin, or mescaline.

Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) was discovered accidentally by Albert Hofmann on April 16, 1943. He had actually unintentionally created it 5 years prior while attempting to synthesize potentially medicinal active constituents from ergot fungus, a fungus that grows on rye. For 5 years the synthesis collected dust until he decided to reexamine it. While reexamining the LSD a small amount was absorbed into Hofmann’s fingertip.

Last Friday, April 16,1943, I was forced to interrupt my work in the laboratory in the middle of the afternoon and proceed home, being affected by a remarkable restlessness, combined with a slight dizziness. At home I lay down and sank into a not unpleasant intoxicated-like condition, characterized by an extremely stimulated imagination. In a dreamlike state, with eyes closed (I found the daylight to be unpleasantly glaring), I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors. After some two hours this condition faded away. – Albert Hofmann

Hofmann was intrigued, and three days later he tried it again, marking April 19, 1943 as the first day a human being ever intentionally consumed LSD.

Hofmann-LSD-bicycle-day

This day is now known as “Bicycle Day,” because Hofmann rode his bike home while he was tripping. Hofmann and his wife spent the rest of their lives advocating the use of LSD, psilocybin, and other psychedelics in the field of psychotherapy.

Below is a documentary on LSD which focuses on Albert Hofmann.

Hofmann’s Potion – Albert Hofmann LSD Documentary

By the mid-1950s, LSD-research was being published in medical and academic journals all over the world. It showed potential benefits in the treatment of alcoholism, drug addiction, and other mental illnesses. This film explores those potential benefits, and the researchers who explored them.

> Effects of Lysergic Acid Diethylamide 100% Positive | Wonder Gressive

True Hallucinations: A Terence McKenna Psychedelic Book (Audiobook)

True Hallucinations: A Terence McKenna Psychedelic Book (Audiobook) | Third Monk image 3

true_hallucinations_final

Hearing Terence talk about his ideas is even better than reading them.

His eloquent passion drips with every spoken word, and his emphasis on certain words reveals glimpses into his mind-set when he was writing.

True Hallucinations is, well, perhaps Publishers Weekly’s hilarious review said it best:

In 1971 ethnobotanist McKenna ( The Archaic Revival ), his brother Dennis and three friends boated to a town in Amazonian Colombia, seeking a hallucinogenic plant that enables the Witoto tribe to talk to elf-like “little men.” In psychedelicized ravings interspersed with diary excerpts, McKenna records their experiences after ingesting mind-altering mushrooms and other psychoactive plants.

A flying saucer slowly flew over McKenna’s head; he calls it a “holographic mirage” of a future technology. Dennis had a revelation about a “psychofluid” that pervades the universe. McKenna flashes forward to Hawaii in 1975 where mantis-like creatures from hyperspace attack his lover, and flashes back to his tantric lovemaking in Tibet and to Indonesia where unrepentant Nazi scientists tried to recruit him in 1970. He posits the existence of a particle of time, the chronon , which conditions matter. A bizarre book. – Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc

True Hallucinations Audiobook

Prefer reading: True Hallucinations PDF

Our self discoveries make us each a microcosm of the larger pattern of history. The inertia of introspection leads toward recollection, for only through memory is the past recaptured and understood. In the fact of experiencing and making the present, we are all actors. – Terrence McKenna

terence_mckenna True Hallucinations

How to be Ultra Spiritual – Funny Parody with JP Sears (Video)

How to be Ultra Spiritual - Funny Parody with JP Sears (Video) | Third Monk image 2

Ever wanted to be ultra spiritual? Well, look no further than JP Sears parody video that hilariously captures the essence of what it means to be spiritual today.

Perhaps it is our ability to laugh at ourselves and not take ourselves too seriously is what increases our spiritual growth.

JP Sears is an inner coach who strives to empower people to live more meaningful lives as whole individuals by guiding them to move beyond their symptoms of pain and sabotage.

Regardless of his mission statement, JP absolutely kills it in this video. It’s a well produced timely piece that is hilariously accurate.

jp sears ultra spiritual

DMT – Hallucinogenic Fuel Produced By Our Brains

DMT - Hallucinogenic Fuel Produced By Our Brains | Third Monk

dmt-pineal-gland

DMT is an illegal, psychedelic compound found in the human body and at least 60 species of plants worldwide. Terence McKenna (who has raised awareness of DMT to its present level) called DMT “the most powerful hallucinogen known to man and science” in his 1994 lecture Rap Dancing Into the Third Millennium

McKenna first smoked DMT as an undergraduate at Berkeley in early 1967. He had experience with LSD—ingesting it “once a month or so”—and other psychedelics, but said in an interview:

It was really the DMT that empowered my commitment to the psychedelic experience.

DMT was so much more powerful, so much more alien, raising all kinds of issues about what is reality, what is language, what is the self, what is three-dimensional space and time, all the questions I became involved with over the next twenty years or so. – Terence McKenna, The Archaic Revival (1992)

Third Eye Perception

From 1990 to 1995, Dr. Rick Strassman administered 400 intravenous doses of DMT to 60 heavily pre-screened volunteers with extensive experience with psychedelics. He documented the results—in fascinating detail, because it “was important that other people knew how to wind their way through this maze,” the two-year process was published in DMT: The Spirit Molecule (Dec 2000), nine months after Terence McKenna died.

The pineal gland of older life forms, like lizards, is called “the ‘third’ eye” and has a lens, cornea, and retina. As life evolved, the pineal moved deeper into the brain. The human pineal gland is not actually part of the brain. Rather, it develops from specialized tissues in the roof of the fetal mouth. From there it migrates to the center of the brain, where it seems to have the best seat in the house.

Twenty-five years ago, Japanese scientists discovered that the brain actively transports DMT across the blood-brain barrier into its tissues. I know of no other psychedelic drug that the brain treats with such eagerness.

This is a startling fact that we should keep in mind when we recall how readily biological psychiatrists dismissed a vital role for DMT in our lives.

If DMT were only an insignificant, irrelevant by-product of our metabolism, why does the brain go out of its way to draw it into its confines? – Dr. Rick Strassman, DMT Researcher

DMT: You cannot imagine a stranger drug or experience  | VICE