THE |
|
a cache of usenet and other text files pertaining
to occult, mystical, and spiritual subjects. |
To: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.satanism,alt.politics.satanism,alt.magick From: ryansoileau@yahoo.com (RyanS2) Subject: Re: Occultism, Mental Illness (Cause/Effect?), and Satanism Date: 23 Jan 2003 08:59:36 -0800 > First and probably foremost, I have had a lot of experience with > meditation and people who have meditate, and I have never heard of > anything like what they are describing. Nothing even remotely > resembling what they are describing. Are you a trained psychologist? Have you ever conducted double-blind studies? Have you ever examined people before and after they started meditation to notice changeable patterns in their cognitive recognition? In other words, "Do you have any credentials outside of ad hoc hypothesis to establish a line of verifiability?" > I mean if you want to cite what appears to be scientific evidence that > 20% of people who play piano grow purple wings, then you will have > cited what appears to be scientific evidence that people who play > piano grow purple wings, but I have known enough people who play piano > to call it bullshit. Likewise, I have had KKK members tell me that they don't encourage violence against minorities, I have had Marxists deny an experiment done by a Marxist doctor which involved genital reconfiguration to prove the Marxist hypothesis that sex is a class struggle to be true to "not be in the interest of Marxism", and so forth. > Second, what exactly are you missing in the above? Who is Singer? > Who posted this data? Clearly it is not taken directly from > Persinger, it is appearing in some larger context and is posted by > somebody trying to describe an overall pattern in meditators. Who > posted it? > > Is the fact that it is on the Internet sufficient evidence to you that > this information is valid? I've read the original studies, including various interviews with Persinger and his data. I didn't go into detail because I didn't feel like it. Let me give a little elaboration. Here's Persinger's hypothesis: 1.) Meditation, prayer, chanting, mundras, yoga, and magick work all cause the same changes in brain-wave patterns. 2.) After extended changes in the brain-wave make-up, the person will start becoming more and more "sensitive" to psychic phenoms. 3.) These psychic phenoms are shown to be consistent with a sensitive temporal lobe. This work has been published in three places: "Religious and mystical experiences as artifacts of temporal lobe function: A general hypothesis." Perceptual and Motor Skills 57:1255-1262. "Temporal lobe signs and personality characteristics". Perceptual and Motor Skills 66:49-50. Persinger, M. and K. Makarec. 1987. "Temporal lobe epileptic signs and correlative behaviors displayed by normal populations". Journal of General Psychology 114(2): 179-195. For a fuller hypothesis, here's Peggy Wright, "A psychobiological approach to shamanic altered states of consciousness". ReVision, Spring 1994, p. 172: "The ASCs most commonly used by shamans differ both phenomenologically and biologically from possession trance (PT) or TL-ASC. Possession trance involves more behaviors which approximate temporal lobe seizures with clear amygdala involvement. Shamanic ASCs likely share a common neurobiology with other ecstatic and mystical states. However, specific phenomenological and biological factors may vary enough to separate certain meditative ASCs from shamanic ones. One possible physiological correlate of ecstatic and mystical experiences involves electrical changes in the deep structures of the temporal lobes. These may involve either (a) ictal events, such as TLTs with amygdala participation or milder forms of temporal lobe seizures without pronounced amygdala involvement, and/or (b) interictal hippocampal high-voltage, slow-wave hypersynchrony without amygdala involvement. These electrical changes may either occur spontaneously or be induced by a variety of behaviors, all of which have been used by shamans to enter trance states. The electrical changes can be linked to a number of personality changes found in individuals with TLE. A number of these characteristics are similar to those found during certain instances of the shamanic call. Therefore, one type of shamanic call may involve such spontaneously generated electrical activity. Temporal lobe transients and mild TLE may provide a neurological substrate for the development of mature shamanic ASCs. The actual control of these ictal events, through the cultivation of interictal hypersynchrony, may provide the method for entering and controlling shamanic ASCs. Hippocampal high-amplitude, slow-wave hypersynchrony may provide neurobiological contributions to shamanic reintegration after the initiatory crises and to continuing mental and physical health. Both genetic and nongenetic physiological factors interact with learned behavior to influence shamanic ASCs. Hallucinogenic plant substances have a strong capacity to bypass any lack of physiological predisposition to developing ASCs. The typically long training periods allow for shamanic ASCs to be "shaped" by various induction procedures and cultural expectations. This shaping process affects the phenomenology of these ASCs and, very likely, the specifics of their neurophysiology as well." The next one is "UFOs...Seriously", by Susan McClelland and John betts, from "Maclean's", 8/13/2001, p.44-48: "Individuals prone to paranormal experiences are sensitive to weak electromagnetic fields and to man-made electrical fields, which are becoming more prominent in the communication age," explains Persinger, who has studied the link between magnetic fields and paranormal experience for 15 years. Initial experiments exposed the right hemisphere of subjects' brains to magnetic fields, prompting subjects to posit a presence interacting with their thoughts and moving in space as they focused on it. So paranormal experiences during or just following stimulation of the right hemisphere may be no more than the right half of the brain becoming aware of the left. Persinger could evoke the presence in many individuals, but it was most common in subjects with temporal-lobe sensitivity. "People with sensitive lobes have experiences resembling those of epileptics," says Persinger. "Also, they're creative and sensitive to the electromagnetic environment." > Your original claim was that magic causes brain damage. You have > posted some very specious data which while completely contradicting > everything I have ever encountered in meditation, also completely > fails to support your point. You are drawing a purely speculative > relation between "epilepsy-like symptoms" in your specious data and > the brain damage you claimed. No, I simply followed the KISS guideline: Keep it Simple, Stupid. Judging from the answers I got in response to the post, my ideas were basically right. It's a waste of my time to have posted this much in response. The post which listed an abbreviated version of Persinger's work is available through SFweekly, August 28, 2002. > Very specific description. It didn't come from any data you have, so > where did it come from? You mistated that. It should be "any data which you posted up". For the next part, I turn to Independent School, Winter2002, Vol. 61 Issue 2, pp. 70-78, Kenneth Wesson, "Where is God in the Brain?": "Over the years, there have been cases of certain types of epilepsy that have promoted higher states of religiosity. Twenty-five percent of the individuals who have fallen victim to right temporal lobe damage report “seeing God's face” and “hearing God's voice.” Disease or damage to the same region brought forth religious visions, feelings of ecstasy, and related phenomena. Prominent religious figures such as Joan of Arc were reported to have shown several of the classic symptoms of someone suffering from temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) complete with revelations, insights, and visions accompanied by seizures (many of the ingredients for the archetypal epiphany). One of the brain's unique features is that it can alter perception through a wide variety of unusual means, changing our view of reality. When we are alert and awake, neuronal circuits in the upper regions of brain stem produce and discharge important neurotransmitters. These are molecules or “chemical messages” traveling from one neuron to another. Neurotransmitters can modify or even shape our behavior. When and where they act on the brain will determine whether we are happy, violent, in love, or demonstrate any other state of being. When neurons in this area and the region just above it in the medulla are bathed with the essential neurotransmitters, we are alert. In addition to hypnotic states and cases of “mind-over-matter” evidence, taking hallucinogenic drugs can also alter one's state of mind by physically altering specific sensory systems inside the brain. The drugs often cause an individual to see bright colors, hear voices, or otherwise misrepresent the things one sees, seeming to take them into another cerebral dimension. The mystical shaman would eat or smoke special varieties of mushrooms, which would induce trances. The chemicals in mushrooms tinker with the brain's seratonin pathways and change the operations in the thalamus (one of the subcortical structures of the limbic system) and the frontal lobes. While the frontal lobes assists us with decision-making and planning behavior, the thalamus is the gateway for all sensory information relaying all sensory input from the body. The thalamus provides us with the perceptions of touch, pressure, and pain in addition to arousal, emotions, and awareness. The level of seratonin, like psychoactive drugs, can aid or hamper the frontal lobes in their decision-making processes. Once processed and analyzed by the thalamus, which serves a valve-like function, information is sent to the various regions of the cerebral cortex for final processing. Because the brain is basically a small neurochemistry factory, rendering our behavior a function of its interior chemical balances, it must protect its own chemical integrity by carefully monitoring the levels of substance exposure. That safeguard comes by way of a blood-brain barrier, where entry is restricted to the familiar chemicals for which the brain has initiated or orchestrated the production. However, if a foreign chemical has a molecular structure similar to one of the brain's neurotransmitters, it will often enter the brain undetected, which can wreak behavioral havoc. The incoming information overflow causes hallucinations and other distortions in the sensory perception and processing systems. When individuals meditate, chant, recite mantras, or sing religious songs for extended periods of time they can experience profound feelings of euphoria. Sensory deprivation and exhaustion can also change the levels of seratonin in ways that affect the thalamus, resulting in situations in which the brain creates some of its own stimulation (auditory and/or visual hallucinations) or where it assigns gross misattributions to incoming information. While some consider hallucinations, out-of-body feelings, and supernatural experiences to be indicators of higher states of consciousness again are cases where the thalamus has often lost its ability to control the flow of information coming in from the over-stimulated sensory systems. Some individuals who regularly have these experiences are also subjects who are also found to sensitive temporal lobes." Concerning it's relation to brain damage, here's August L. Reader, ReVision, Summer 1994, pp. 7-9: "Another part of the anatomy that is of importance to us in this discussion is the automatic nervous system, comprised of both the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, which act as the automatic regulatory mechanisms within the body. It is through these systems that the blood pressure, pulse, blood oxygenation, breathing, heart rate, and all other automatic functions necessary for the survival of the organism are regulated and kept in balance. Hence, whenever there is an excess in sympathetic flow, in general, there will be a reflex of parasympathetic flow to balance it. For instance, when the blood pressure goes up for any reason due to a stimulus within the sympathetic nervous system, a para-sympathetic rebound will occur through certain reflex arcs. However, there are certain conditions that override this automatic reflex and that can cause a "disconnection" between the two sides of the autonomic nervous system and can lead to profound, if not fatal, results. It is these sorts of disconnections that I will be discussing as to their relationship to the near-death experience. The sympathetic and parasympathetic systems act in "balancing" the stresses that assail the physical body, both externally and internally. These signals are carried into a very primitive part of the brain called the locus coeruleus, either by direct signals (Miller 1985) or by circulating peptides (Myers 1969). From there, the appropriate response is then carried out by either the sympathetic or parasympathetic side of the autonomic system. The locus coeruleus is most sensitive to physiological changes and is the area of the brain that appears to be most involved in near-death experiences and the meditation of the reflexes that occur. The locus coeruleus, in turn, stimulates the hypothalamus, which is the area of the ancient reptilian brain that controls pain, sexual response, hunger, thirst, and all of the major hormonal systems of the body. Vascular Contributions The basilar artery is unique in that it is a single artery that is formed from two arteries, the vertebral arteries, which course superiorly from the spinal column into the back of the neck. It is at the base of the brain that these two arteries fuse to form a singular basilar artery, which then courses from the neck up into an area behind the eyes and in between the ears where it bifurcates into the two posterior cerebral arteries. The posterior cerebral arteries are very important in our discussion because they are the major blood supply to the occipital lobes and to the geniculate bodies, the lateral half of the lateral thalamus, the posterior limb of the internal capsule, and the optic tracts. Psychological Contributions Many of these events are enhanced during certain psychological states of mind, such as when there is extreme fear or panic, and by other forms of marked stimulation to the sympathetic nervous system. During these times, it appears that selected reflex loops are stimulated through the amygdala and limbic system to retrieve temporal lobe memories as templates to match the perceived danger within the environment. This is an archetypal protective mechanism that automatically comes into play whenever the sympathetic nervous system is stimulated in a "fight-or-flight" response (Cannon 1927). These archetypal memories are those that have been genetically saved throughout hundreds of generations of human and probably earlier evolutionary life that have enabled mankind to survive and flourish. Thus, with increasing sympathetic stimulation, there is an enhancement of these archetypal survival images that can then be variously interpreted as mystical images, reincarnations, channeling, or other paranormal and equally theological phenomenon (Reichel-Dolmatoff 1972). Conversely, when there is an excessive stimulation of the parasympathetic nervous system, which can also occur in darkness, a vasodilation of the peripheral circulatory system occurs, leading to a slow decrease in blood flow to the cerebral cortex. When this occurs, the areas most sensitive to decreased blood flow and decreased oxygenation are those areas called "watershed" areas at the end of capillary beds. These areas occur where the capillary beds of one major artery comes in contact with the capillary beds of another artery, such as those seen in the occipital lobe and brainstem. The occipital pole, which serves central visual acuity, is one of the most common areas involved in cerebral vascular accidents of the watershed type. Typical to loss of blood flow to this area leads to a condition known as a cortical release phenomenon (Brust and Behrens 1977), with the generation of a large, white light in the central portion of the vision (Foerster 1931). As this white light extends, it increases to involve the entire occipital cortex and, thus, the entire visual field. This is what occurs in profound mystical states such as those seen in Zen Buddhism and Hinduism, where profound relaxation (i.e., parasympathetic overload) occurs with marked peripheral vasodilation (Guyton 1991), leading to cortical ischemia of the type described above. This has also been called "Nirvana," "Samadhi," or "Union With God." The latter metaphor is prevalent in Catholic mysticism such as that described by St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila (Pears 1972). Also, the sudden loss of blood pressure to the brain that elicits this phenomenon is basic to the near-death experience and the commonality of vascular collapse seen in those patients (Morse 1990)." > And what the hell do you mean by "post hoc postulations"? It means "after the purpose", generally, post hoc assumptions are ones you make about the past by looking at present evidence and making a conclusion about the past based upon this evidence. If used as a fallacy argument, it's called "post hoc, ergo propter hoc". A book which uses this approach quite a bit is Robert Wright's "The Moral Animal". > I will happily concede to you the title of "ten minute expert". I will happily brandy my title about, but I'm willing to bet I'm the only person here who has read the studies listed. :P
The Arcane Archive is copyright by the authors cited.
Send comments to the Arcane Archivist: tyaginator@arcane-archive.org. |
Did you like what you read here? Find it useful?
Then please click on the Paypal Secure Server logo and make a small donation to the site maintainer for the creation and upkeep of this site. |
The ARCANE ARCHIVE is a large domain,
organized into a number of sub-directories, each dealing with a different branch of religion, mysticism, occultism, or esoteric knowledge. Here are the major ARCANE ARCHIVE directories you can visit: |
|
interdisciplinary:
geometry, natural proportion, ratio, archaeoastronomy
mysticism: enlightenment, self-realization, trance, meditation, consciousness occultism: divination, hermeticism, amulets, sigils, magick, witchcraft, spells religion: buddhism, christianity, hinduism, islam, judaism, taoism, wicca, voodoo societies and fraternal orders: freemasonry, golden dawn, rosicrucians, etc. |
SEARCH THE ARCANE ARCHIVE
There are thousands of web pages at the ARCANE ARCHIVE. You can use ATOMZ.COM
to search for a single word (like witchcraft, hoodoo, pagan, or magic) or an
exact phrase (like Kwan Yin, golden ratio, or book of shadows):
OTHER ESOTERIC AND OCCULT SITES OF INTEREST
Southern
Spirits: 19th and 20th century accounts of hoodoo,
including slave narratives & interviews
|