Elevate and Evolve | Cannabis & Psychedelic Culture Blog
This downloadable PDF claims to house all of Nikola Tesla’s articles from his time. Although impossible to verify, it houses a wealth of information about the man’s work.
Compiled over the course of months by devoted researcher Derek Worthington and made available to all for free.
Direct Link Option: Follow the link, then click on the PDF download button.
> The Tesla Archives | Aether Force
The human mind expands with the number of new experiences that are encountered. Psilocybin research points to the possibility that these experiences open up realms of consciousness that are otherwise untapped during normal cognitive functioning. Your brain and body remember these states of being resulting in a positive shift towards one’s outlook on life.
After psilocybin injections, the 15 participants were found to have increased brain function in areas associated with emotion and memory. The effect was strikingly similar to a brain in dream sleep.
– Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris, a post-doctoral researcher in neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London and co-author of the study
These hyper emotional states are also seen during dream states. By experiencing these senses in your waking life through magic mushrooms you expand your perception and view reality more like a dream long after the initial trip. This helps relieve stress and has shown to lead to a positive outlook on life.
Our firm sense of self—the habits and experiences that we find integral to our personality—is quieted by these trips. Carhart-Harris believes that the drugs may unlock emotion while “basically killing the ego,” allowing users to be less narrow-minded and let go of negative outlooks.
Based on these findings, shrooms may take you on a trip to a happier and more positively charged outlook of reality.
> Psychedelic Mushrooms Put Your Mind in a “Waking Dream”, Study Finds | Washington Post
Here’s a scientific approach to the idea of superfoods. First, a little background on the experiments objective.
Powerhouse fruits and vegetables (PFV), foods most strongly associated with reduced chronic disease risk, are described as green leafy, yellow/orange, citrus, and cruciferous items, but a clear definition of PFV is lacking . Defining PFV on the basis of nutrient and phytochemical constituents is suggested.
However, uniform data on food phytochemicals and corresponding intake recommendations are lacking. This article describes a classification scheme defining PFV on the basis of 17 nutrients of public health importance per the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and Institute of Medicine (ie, potassium, fiber, protein, calcium, iron, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, folate, zinc, and vitamins A, B6, B12, C, D, E, and K).
Now keep in mind that this experiment doesn’t take into account antioxidants or other benefits to eating superfoods. The focus is the density of the 17 above mentioned nutrients in the foods evaluated.
Watercress 100.00
Chinese cabbage 91.99
Chard 89.27
Beet green 87.08
Spinach 86.43
Chicory 73.36
Leaf lettuce 70.73
Parsley 65.59
Romaine lettuce 63.48
Collard green 62.49
Turnip green 62.12
Mustard green 61.39
Endive 60.44
Chive 54.80
Kale 49.07
Dandelion green 46.34
Red pepper 41.26
Arugula 37.65
Broccoli 34.89
Pumpkin 33.82
Brussels sprout 32.23
Scallion 27.35
Kohlrabi 25.92
Cauliflower 25.13
Cabbage 24.51
Carrot 22.60
Tomato 20.37
Lemon 18.72
Iceberg lettuce 18.28
Strawberry 17.59
Radish 16.91
Winter squash (all varieties) 13.89
Orange 12.91
Lime 12.23
Grapefruit (pink and red) 11.64
Rutabaga 11.58
Turnip 11.43
Blackberry 11.39
Leek 10.69
Sweet potato 10.51
Grapefruit (white) 10.47
Calculated as the mean of percent daily values (DVs) (based on a 2,000 kcal/d diet) for 17 nutrients (potassium, fiber, protein, calcium, iron, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, folate, zinc, and vitamins A, B6, B12, C, D, E, and K) as provided by 100 g of food, expressed per 100 kcal of food. Scores above 100 were capped at 100 (indicating that the food provides, on average, 100% DV of the qualifying nutrients per 100 kcal).
I hope these results help people that are looking to maximize their nutrient intake by choosing the superfoods that will deliver more for less.
> Defining Powerhouse Fruits and Vegetables: A Nutrient Density Approach | Center for Disease Control and Prevention
For more than a century, scientists have been trying to figure out exactly what consciousness really is, how it works and where it comes from. And while many questions remain to be answered, it appears some researchers have now discovered what they call an “on/off switch” for human consciousness.
A group of scientists at George Washington University say they were able to switch off a woman’s consciousness by electrically stimulating a single area of the brain.
The study published in the Journal of Epilepsy & Behavior, Aug 2014 claims the scientists discovered the “switch” on accident while working to pinpoint the cause of the patient’s seizures.
New Scientist reports the research group was targeting the claustrum, “a thin, sheet-like structure that lies hidden deep inside the brain”, with electrodes.
Gizmodo explains that’s when the women unexpectedly lost consciousness:
Unlike a seizure, where a person’s activity immediately stops, the patient seemed to ‘slow down,’ speaking more quietly and moving more slowly until she was silent and still, unresponsive to voice or visual stimulation.
Once the electrical stimulation was turned off, she regained full consciousness but with no memory of what just happened.
This study is incredibly intriguing but it is one brick in a large edifice of consciousness that we’re trying to build … Ultimately, if we know how consciousness is created and which parts of the brain are involved then we can understand who has it and who doesn’t. – prominent American neuroscientist Cristof Koch – Huffington Post
While the presence of this on/off switch has only been recorded in one patient, this discovery has potential to help people with epilepsy or who are in a semiconscious state.
> Scientists Find ‘On/Off Switch’ For Human Consciousness | Newsy
Can your brain detect events before they occur?
That was the stunning conclusion of a 2012 meta-analysis of experiments from seven independent laboratories over the last 35 years, which found that the human body can apparently detect randomly delivered stimuli occurring 1-10 seconds in the future.
In the studies, physiological readings were taken as participants were subjected to unpredictable events designed to activate the sympathetic nervous system (for example, showing provocative imagery) as well as ‘neutral events’ that did not activate the nervous system. These readings showed that the nervous system aligned with the nature of the event (activated/not activated) – and what’s more, the magnitude of the pre-event response corresponded with the magnitude of the post-event response.
In a recent paper, researchers have critically analysed these findings, considering possible mundane explanations for the results and also the implications of the results if they truly do point to a paradigm-shaking discovery.
The key observation in these studies is that human physiology appears to be able to distinguish between unpredictable dichotomous future stimuli, such as emotional vs. neutral images or sound vs. silence. This phenomenon has been called presentiment (feel the future).
In this paper we call it predictive anticipatory activity or PAA. The phenomenon is “predictive” because it can distinguish between upcoming stimuli; it is “anticipatory” because the physiological changes occur before a future event; and it is an “activity” because it involves changes in the cardiopulmonary, skin, and/or nervous systems.
Neither questionable research practices (bias) nor physiological artifacts seem to be able to explain PAA, the evidence indicates that there is a temporal mirroring between pre- and post-event physiological events, so that the nature of the post-event physiological response is correlated with the characteristics of the PAA for that event. – Study
The authors of the paper also point out fascinating aspects of the research, such as the fact that “PAA is an unconscious phenomenon” that “appears to resemble precognition (consciously knowing something is going to happen before it does), but PAA specifically refers to unconscious physiological reactions as opposed to conscious premonitions”.
There must be a necessity for PAA to remain non-conscious most of the time, if some part of our nervous system can obtain information about events seconds in the future, wouldn’t we have evolved to make this information conscious? – Study
A metaphor may help to provide an intuitive feel for this effect – watching a river move past a stick.
Imagine that the direction of the water’s current is the conscious experience of the flow of time (temporal flow), and imagine that an intrusion in the flow (the stick) is an emotional, arousing, or otherwise important event. The largest disturbance in the water made by the intrusion is downstream (in the “forward” time direction), which is analogous to our conscious reaction to experiencing the important event.
But if one examines the flow of water near the stick, one will also see a small perturbation upstream, anticipating the intrusion in the water downstream due to the back pressure. Similar to PAA, this upstream perturbation is a hint of things to come. It is not normally part of our conscious awareness and, as with disturbances in a flow of water, the majority of the effect of an intrusion is downstream of the intrusion.
Nevertheless, the authors of the recent paper urge caution until more extensive research is undertaken:
Until there is a gold standard experiment that is replicated across laboratories using exactly the same experimental procedure, physiological measures, and statistical analyses, there remains the possibility that multiple analyses could influence the body of evidence supporting PAA.
I look forward to seeing the results of these future investigations. Or do I already know what they are going to be?
> We Unconsciously React to Events Up to 10 Seconds Before They Happen | Earth We Are One
The ability to become lucid during a dream and gain control of the dream itself has been coveted, examined and practiced for centuries; resulting in many methods and exercises that cultivate lucid dreams. The opportunity to consciously explore the dream-space can provide insights into the mysteries of the unconscious mind; lucid dreaming can also be used therapeutically to address traumatic memories or chronic nightmares.
Recently a team of scientists led by psychologist Ursula Voss of the Goethe University in Frankfort, Germany successfully induced lucid dreams in test subjects by stimulating specific brain regions with an electrical current. The study, published in Nature Neuroscience in May, provides some of the first data necessary to understand the biology of lucid dreaming.
Voss’ early studies found that participants’ reports of lucid dreams tended to occur during REM sleep. At the beginning of a sleep cycle, the brain slows from high frequency gamma and beta waves associated with waking, processing and alertness. The patterns of brain activity progress through slowing alpha waves to deep sleep’s delta and theta frequencies.
Paradoxically, the sleep cycle apexes in REM, and the brainwaves speed up. Dreams normally occur during REM sleep, when many regions of the brain appear to be functioning as if it were awake. When subjects reported a lucid dream, there was distinct gamma activity, the highest frequency range of brainwave, in the frontotemporal region.
The frontotemporal region is associated with executive functioning, decision making, processing complex stimuli, and self-awareness. Voss and her team theorized that lucid dreams occur when the frontotemporal region of the brain is active at a gamma level during REM sleep. To test this theory, they used a non-invasive method called Transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation. TACS uses electrodes placed on the scalp to stimulate the surface of the brain. When they sent an electrical current in the Gamma frequency into the frontotemporal region of the scalp, the participants overwhelmingly reported a self-aware dream upon waking.
The ability of physicians to induce lucid dreams could provide new treatment models for sleep disorders, post-traumatic stress, and even anxiety and depression. Sleep, especially REM, is vital to the formation of memories, the consolidation of stimuli into larger concepts, and the regeneration of the brain. If Voss’ research provides a consistent method of psychic exploration, scientists and psychonauts will be able to further understand the mysteries, mechanisms and potential self-discoveries of dreams.
Elliot Hill seems to miss the point in the video above, but I’ve left it in since some people would rather see a video about the study rather than read about it.
Elliot glosses over the multitude of benefits lucid dreaming offers and instead says he doesn’t want to be alertly conscious all of the time, claiming dreams are his last bastion of unconscious musings. It is laughable that Elliot believes he is fully conscious and aware throughout his entire waking life, a feat that many of us struggle with hourly!
Much like psychedelics, lucid dreaming can be a tool to help further your understanding of yourself and the universe, and honestly, what is more important than that?
For those uncertain of taking the mental plunge into lucid dreaming or psychedelics or with experience on the subject sound off below with your thoughts.
> Induce Lucid Dreams With Electrical Stimulation | Ultra Culture
How chemicals in cannabis interacts with the brain
Raphael Mechoulam, a heavily decorated scientist determined the structure of cannabidiol (CBD) in 1963, an important component of cannabis. A year later, he became the first person to isolate delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. Over the ensuing decades, Mechoulam and his team continued to isolate numerous compounds from the cannabis plant.
In 1999, Mechoulam wrote a paper describing something known as “the entourage effect.”
Think of it like this: There are more than 480 natural components found within the cannabis plant, of which 66 have been classified as “cannabinoids.” Those are chemicals unique to the plant, including delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol and cannabidiols. There are, however, many more, including:
— Cannabigerols (CBG)
— Cannabichromenes (CBC)
— other Cannabidiols (CBD)
— other Tetrahydrocannabinols (THC)
— Cannabinol (CBN) and cannabinodiol (CBDL)
— other cannabinoids (such as cannabicyclol (CBL), cannabielsoin (CBE), cannabitriol (CBT) and other miscellaneous types).
Other constituents of the cannabis plant are: nitrogenous compounds (27 known), amino acids (18), proteins (3), glycoproteins (6), enzymes (2), sugars and related compounds (34), hydrocarbons (50), simple alcohols (7), aldehydes (13), ketones (13), simple acids (21), fatty acids (22), simple esters (12), lactones (1), steroids (11), terpenes (120), non-cannabinoid phenols (25), flavonoids (21), vitamins (1), pigments (2), and other elements (9).
Mechoulam, along with many others, said he believes all these components of the cannabis plant likely exert some therapeutic effect, more than any single compound alone.
While science has not yet shown the exact role or mechanism for all these various compounds, evidence is mounting that these compounds work better together than in isolation: That is the “entourage effect.”
To better understand the concept of the entourage effect, Dr. Sanjay Gupta traveled to the secret labs of GW Pharmaceuticals, outside London. In developing Sativex, a cannabis-based drug to treat multiple sclerosis, the company’s chairman, Dr. Geoffrey Guy, told Gupta that the company ran into some obstacles.
More than a decade of experiments revealed that a whole plant extract, bred to contain roughly the same amounts of THC and CBD in addition to the other components in the plant, was more effective in reducing the pain and spasms of MS than a medication made of a single compound.
It could be that multiple individual compounds play a role, or it could be due to their interaction in the body; it could also be combination of both, Guy said.
Now, maybe this all sounds obvious. After all, eating real fruits, vegetables and other plants provides better nutrition than just taking vitamin pills with one nutrient or mineral in each. Science is showing us that we can likely say the same about cannabis.
Unlike other drugs that may work well as single compounds, synthesized in a lab, cannabis may offer its most profound benefit as a whole plant, if we let the entourage effect flower, as Mechoulam suggested more than a decade ago.
Six decades ago, a 21-year-old Navy fighter pilot on a mission over the Pacific was shot down by Japanese artillery. His name might have been forgotten, were it not for 6-year-old James Leininger.
Quite a few people — including those who knew the fighter pilot — think James is the pilot, reincarnated.
It is not surprising to be born more than once; everything in nature is resurrection.
– Voltaire
Reincarnation is spoken of in many cultures and religions as something that occurs to souls when they have lessons that still need to be learned in physical incarnation. Some return for lessons, some apparently return to alleviate karma from past-lives, and some return simply to do good work on the earth and help other souls evolve here.
However, reincarnation is not something you can objectively measure. So the question becomes: Is there enough evidence to justify a belief in reincarnation?
Dr. Ian Stevenson, Ph.D., former Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, spent 40 years researching reincarnation stories with children.
This former chairman of the Department of Psychiatry and Neurology investigated over 3000 independent stories of children who claimed to have memories and know people from their alleged past lives. According to Stevenson, the number of cases that are worth considering is so high that it exceeds the ability of him and his team to investigate them all.
Facial recognition software confirmed that there was in fact a facial resemblance to their alleged prior incarnation. Some had birth marks on places where they allegedly suffered fatal wounds from in their past life. They were often dramatic and sometimes bizarre lesions, such as malformed digits or missing limbs, misshapen heads, and odd markings.
About 35% of children who claim to remember previous lives have birthmarks and/or birth defects that they (or adult informants) attribute to wounds on a person whose life the child remembers. The cases of 210 such children have been investigated.
The birthmarks were usually areas of hairless, puckered skin; some were areas of little or no pigmentation (hypopigmented macules); others were areas of increased pigmentation (hyperpigmented nevi). The birth defects were nearly always of rare types. In cases in which a deceased person was identified the details of whose life unmistakably matched the child’s statements, a close correspondence was nearly always found between the birthmarks and/or birth defects on the child and the wounds on the deceased person.
In 43 of 49 cases in which a medical document (usually a postmortem report) was obtained, it confirmed the correspondence between wounds and birthmarks (or birth defects). – Dr. Stevenson in ‘Birthmarks and Birth Defects Corresponding to Wounds on Deceased Persons’
In an article where 3 cases were looked at in great detail by Dr. Stevenson, he reported that each of the 3 children made roughly 30-40 claims regarding memories that had of their past lives, 82-92% of which were both verifiable and correct.
The particularities and specific details that were given by the children ranged from the names, personalities, and occupations of their former parents and siblings, to the precise layouts of the houses they lived in.
It was not uncommon for Stevenson to encounter a child who could go into a town he had never been in before and give him the details of the village, former personal belongings, the neighbourhood in which he lived in a past life, and the people who he use to associate with.
What seems to be more than mere chance is that children were able to accurately identify former acquaintances and relationships they had with people in their prior lives. Most impressively was a Lebanese girl who was able to remember and identify 25 different people from her past life and the interpersonal relationships she had with them.
During a presentation at Penn State University in 2005, Dr. Jim B. Tucker, a child psychiatrist at the University of Virginia, described how a mother was leaning over the changing table to change her son’s diaper. Her young toddler unexpectedly said, “When I was your age, I used to change your diapers.” Sam Taylor, of Vermont, was born 18 months following his grandfather’s death.
When he made this comment, he was only a few years old. When he was four and a half years old, however, Taylor was able to pick out his grandfather from a class picture of about 20 people and identify his grandfather’s first car from a photograph.
Upon examining all these findings and publications, we must ask ourselves:
What is the best explanation that can accommodate all of this evidence?
Why are there be so many cases of children who claim to have been other people, who know the specific names and interpersonal relationships of the person they recall being, have similar behaviour and personalities as the people they claimed to be, have birthmarks and abnormalities where they claimed to have suffered wounds in their past lives, and have phobias linked back to alleged past life traumas if reincarnation did not exist?
It seems as though we are not only justified in believing in reincarnation, but it may be the best explanation we have.
> Evidence for Rebirth | Spirit Science and Metaphysics
From Neuroscience to Shamanic Healing and everything in between. This documentary film concisely illuminates the emerging interdisciplinary field of Psychedelic Studies in a way that is accessible, informative and inspiring.
“Psychedemia” is the first academic conference funded by an American university to explicitly focus on the risks and benefits of psychedelic experience. Ph.D’s, M.D.’s, M.A’s, graduate students and lay folk from all walks of life convened at the University of Pennsylvania to present new research addressing the historical and potential influences of psychedelics on knowledge production, health, and creativity. The four day event brought together scientists, artists, journalists, historians and philosophers from more than 10 countries for an Ivy League convocation unprecedented not only in view of its controversial subject matter, but in its unparalleled inter-disciplinary scope.
Psychedemia, the film, concisely presents the varied complexity of the emerging field of Psychedelic Studies in a way that is accessible, informative and inspiring.
Directed and Edited by two-time Emmy Award winner Vann K. Weller and Drew Knight, the documentary is being dedicated to the Public Domain to be freely used for any non-commercial purpose as an intellectual and cultural artifact.
In Psychedelic Science, doctors, scholars and psychonauts gather to discuss the beneficial uses of psychedelics beyond simple recreational use.
It is bringing to light the research and findings that point to positive uses for psychedelics beyond the recreational realm.
I’m happy to see that our society is beginning to make forward progress in the realm of medicinal psychedelics.
These aren’t just recreational tools, these are therapeutic tools and spiritual tools that have been used for thousands of years. – Rick Doblin, PHD. Founder & Directors of MAPS
Breathing is an action that we are all aware of, but are we taking full advantage of this action?
By taking full advantage of different breathing exercises we can enjoy positive effects in our daily lives.
Alan Watkins’ Ted Talk takes you into the neuroscience of breathing techniques, allowing us a look at breathing through a scientific filter.
In the second half he talks about how breathing techniques work physiologically. He mentions that there are 12 different ways that the breath can be adjusted, but only talked about the most important three:
Rhythmically
Smoothly
Location of the focus during the breath (in the center of the chest)To remember this, Dr Watkins uses the acronym B.R.E.A.T.H.E:
Breathe
Regularly
Through the
Heart
Everyday
Neil deGrasse Tyson explained the relaunch of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos, a series meant to promote science literacy and discussion about our place in the universe. During a segment about the Big Bang (16:46), Tyson disputed the notion that religion and science could coexist when trying to understand the nature of existence:
Moyers: Do you give people who make this case, that that was the beginning and that there had to be something that provoked the beginning, do you give them an A at least for trying to reconcile faith and reason?
Tyson: I don’t think they’re reconcilable.
Moyers: What do you mean?
Tyson: Well, so let me say that differently. All efforts that have been invested by brilliant people of the past have failed at that exercise. They just fail. And so I don’t, the track record is so poor that going forward, I have essentially zero confidence, near zero confidence, that there will be fruitful things to emerge from the effort to reconcile them.
So, for example, if you knew nothing about science, and you read, say, the Bible, the Old Testament, which in Genesis, is an account of nature, that’s what that is, and I said to you, give me your description of the natural world based only on this, you would say the world was created in six days, and that stars are just little points of light much lesser than the sun. And that in fact, they can fall out of the sky, right, because that’s what happens during the Revelation.
You know, one of the signs that the second coming, is that the stars will fall out of the sky and land on Earth. To even write that means you don’t know what those things are. You have no concept of what the actual universe is. So everybody who tried to make proclamations about the physical universe based on Bible passages got the wrong answer.
So what happened was, when science discovers things, and you want to stay religious, or you want to continue to believe that the Bible is unerring, what you would do is you would say, “Well, let me go back to the Bible and reinterpret it.” Then you’d say things like, “Oh, well they didn’t really mean that literally. They meant that figuratively.”
So, this whole sort of reinterpretation of the, how figurative the poetic passages of the Bible are came after science showed that this is not how things unfolded. And so the educated religious people are perfectly fine with that. It’s the fundamentalists who want to say that the Bible is the literally, literal truth of God, that and want to see the Bible as a science textbook, who are knocking on the science doors of the schools, trying to put that content in the science room. Enlightened religious people are not behaving that way. So saying that science is cool, we’re good with that, and use the Bible for, to get your spiritual enlightenment and your emotional fulfillment.
