Mind As A Radio Set

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We can best think of mind and brain with the model of a radio set and broadcasting station.

The brain is the equivalent of a radio set; we need it to listen to the broadcasts. The broadcasts are the true equivalent of the mind. But that doesn’t mean the brain is the origin of these transmissions.

Of course mechanistic scientists argue that there is ONLY the radio set and offer as proof the fact that they can block or alter the broadcasts by tweaking the radio set. Of course they are just tuning in to a different broadcast!

I go into this in more detail elsewhere but I just wanted to remind you of the radio set metaphor, to say this:

What do mind altering drugs do?

It could be argued that chemicals change brain functions and therefore transcendent states due to mescaline, cannabis and so forth are really physical in nature. It’s all brain, in other words.

But actually, that argument is not logical.

To continue the radio set metaphor, psychedelic drugs may simply re-tune the set—much as fiddling with a knob would do—and tune it to rather exotic stations, with strange messages!

The truth is that the broadcasts, of whatever nature, do not come from or reside in the radio set.

It’s the same with the mind: it’s not “in” the brain any more than the radio station is “in” the radio set!

So when you read that stimulating the brain with micro-electrodes provokes ancient memories (Karl Pibram), or that right and left brain behave differently in different thought states (Roger Sperry), you are not facing inconvenient science!

You do not need to change your understanding that our minds and spirit are non-material in nature. The idea that the mind evolved through physical evolution is silly logic; the mind has caused physical evolution!

Just thinking out loud!

Even Little White Lies Hurt Your Health

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Those of you who follow all my writings, not just the obvious health advisories, will know I write a lot about mental and spiritual wellbeing.

Those who joined my New Thought Horizons program, for instance, were treated to a talk entitled “Honesty, Lies and Truth”, with a strong message about not telling lies.

Lies undermine one’s own mental health. Lies also compromise your relationship partner; he or she cannot respond to you properly, if you are dishonest about what you are thinking, feeling or doing. In fact it’s a great way to make them look foolish and get them to hate you: just run rings round them with lies, till the whole relationship falls apart!

Then you run around telling more lies about how it was all his or her fault, not your own. Next thing you know—you are just average or “normal”, because they are all doing it too.

I published some startling figures. For instance, 96% of women admit to telling lies often, even daily. That was a survey of women, by women and published in a woman’s journal, if you are wondering about a gender attack.

I sometimes wonder about the 4%: whether they are the honest women or hardcore liars who won’t admit the truth, even on a survey! Continue reading →

21 Burned in Hot Coal Walk Hosted by Tony Robbins

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I’ve been shouting for years that fire walking is stupid, dangerous and meaningless.

Now Tony Robbins is among many ignorant gurus that mislead and hurt their followers. James Ray, remember killed three of his fans in a sweat log folly that went horribly wrong.

In San Francisco, fire officials said 21 people at a Tony Robbins event suffered second and third degree burns, while walking across hot coals and three of the injured were treated at hospitals.

What people who are pseudo-psychologists don’t get is that the body is not the mind.

You can walk on fire and not “feel” anything inside your head. BUT YOUR BODY STILL REACTS TO THE TRAUMA. The body shrieks in silent agony, just as if you had been burned at the stake. It doesn’t like it.

These severe (they are very severe) body traumas come out in later life, just as surely as early abuse will eventually surface.

Robbins is a dumb a**.

The injuries took place during the first day of a four-day event at the San Jose Convention Center which Robbins titles fatuously, “Unleash the Power Within.”

“Put yourself in hospital,” would be a more appropriate slogan. Most of those hurt had second and third degree burns, according to San Jose Fire Department.

A witness, who was not attending the event, heard screams of agony. “People were in pain. It sounded like people were being tortured,” he told Associated Press. He saw three ambulances, about 10 to 15 people on the ground being treated by paramedics and some people being wheeled away on stretchers.

“It was really just chaos,” he said.

Some of the screams of pain would surely have come from Robbins and his insurers. They are going to lose a lot of money: bad deal.

 

Is Disgust A True Emotion?

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If an emotion is a feeling or “vibe” that dictates behavior, then disgust is one of our most powerful emotions!

A growing body of research, has revealed the profound power of disgust, showing that this emotion is a much more potent trigger for our behavior and choices than we ever thought. The results play out in all sorts of unexpected areas, such as politics, the judicial system and our spending habits.

The triggers also affect some people far more than others, and often without their knowledge. Disgust, once dubbed “the forgotten emotion of psychiatry”, is being looked at with interest.

Disgust, you may know, is among the so-called ‘basic emotions’ which are recognizable by facial expressions in all races and all societies, even the least advanced. They are the fundamental building blocks of our emotional constitution.

Ekman & Friesen (1982) put forward a list of seven basic emotions commonly judged from still photographs of posed facial behavior, namely:

  1. surprise
  2. interest
  3. anger
  4. disgust/contempt
  5. happiness
  6. sadness
  7. fear.

They qualified this list by pointing out that it is not supposed to represent all emotions, merely the ones that can be discerned from facial appearances, minus any other expressions. One may question the inclusion of surprise as an emotion. Certainly it is a facial appearance but it can appear at many levels on this scale, including surprise happiness and surprise fear (shock), which are wide apart. Continue reading →

The Delusion Of Being You!

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My attention was grabbed by an article in New Scientist, which revealed that experiments were being done in which a robot was controlled by thought alone. The human subject in a laboratory was wired to a functional MRI (fMRI) scanner, which read his intentions according to which parts of the brain cortex were lit up (in stimulation). This notional action was then relayed as instructions to a robot, thousands of kilometres away, which made the movement that the lab experimenter was thinking about.

Shades of the Avatar movie!

We all know we are on the brink of the era in which we can control computers by means of our thoughts; I even wrote about it in my 1999 best-selling book Virtual Medicine. Well, that day is come…

Moreover, we may soon reach a time when we can use a computer-controlled surrogate body to trek across the Sahara, shoot the rapids in the Grand Canyon, have dinner in Paris with a friend and even go to the moon.

This beats “virtual reality” to Hell and back!

True Embodiment

Tele-operated robots, those that can be remotely controlled by a human, have been around for decades.

This new approach goes way beyond that. What was truly remarkable about this experiment was that the human subject began to feel he actually WAS the robot. He felt it was part of himself. We call that embodiment.

Let’s learn more: Continue reading →

Red-Yellow-and-Blue, What Does It Do To You?

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There’s a corny old British patriotic song with the words, “Red, white and blue, what does it mean to you?… (Union Jack colors)

If you are like me, you grew up with the “everybody knows” information that red light is challenging, keeps you energized and makes people aggressive; whereas green light is soothing and calming. Remember?

But it’s not true.

It’s like the flat Earth or the belief that heavier-than-air machines could not possibly fly. Wrong!

Recent scientific study has shown that red light is essential for healthy circadian rhythms. Blue light is the problem.

Here’s what Nature does:

  1. In the mornings, we awake to yellow light (that delicious golden glow of sunrise!)
  2. At mid-day, when we are at our most active, blue light is dominant.
  3. In the evening, mellowed reddish colors calm and prepare us for sleep.

Red light encourages the release of melatonin, our “sleep hormone”. Blue light suppresses this vital, healthy rest hormone.

Artificial Light

The trouble is, in our modern world, we are drenched in blue light, 24/7. Fluorescent “white” light is predominantly blue-green. The newer LEDs emit   “white” light that is predominantly blue.

All this has a bad effect on our sleep cycles. It’s dangerous. Continue reading →