Drugs and the Meaning of Life (Photo by JB Banks) (Note 6/4/2014: I have revised this 2011 essay and added an audio version.—SH) Everything we do is for the purpose of altering consciousness. We form friendships so that we can feel certain emotions, like love, and avoid others, like loneliness. Drugs are another means toward this end. One of the great responsibilities we have as a society is to educate ourselves, along with the next generation, about which substances are worth ingesting and for what purpose and which are not. However, we should not be too quick to feel nostalgia for the counterculture of the 1960s. Drug abuse and addiction are real problems, of course, the remedy for which is education and medical treatment, not incarceration. I discuss issues of drug policy in some detail in my first book, The End of Faith, and my thinking on the subject has not changed. I have two daughters who will one day take drugs. This is not to say that everyone should take psychedelics. (Pokhara, Nepal) Recommended Reading:
10 Questions: On Finding Your ‘Soul-Life’ in a 130-Year-Old Book Brooke Williams and Terry Tempest Williams are two of our generation’s greatest gifts. Brooke is the author of four books, and he offers deep meditations on wilderness and wild lands, as well as working actively in defense of the pristine, most recently with the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. Terry is legendary for her intensely personal explorations of nature and life and the human resonance between the two, and she’s the author of the critically acclaimed Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place and numerous other books. The couple, who divide their time between Castle Valley, Utah, and Jackson, Wyoming, were in a book shop in Maine when Terry stumbled across a volume called The Story of My Heart. Recently, I caught up with the two to learn more about how and why The Story of My Heart got under their skin, and what lessons it has for us today. 1. Brooke Williams: The Story of My Heart, I believe, comes from the collective unconscious, into which Jefferies was able to tap.
Coincidence is an Illusion - What is Synchronicity? All Coincidences Have Meaning Nothing Happens by Chance Have you ever experienced a coincidence so incredible that it left you stunned? If so, then you have just taken a step into the amazing world of Synchronicity. What happens in most people’s lives is beyond their control. Your most carefully planned project can be ruined by a single chance event, but a seemingly ridiculous idea could be a huge success due to chance! Cause and Effect are an Illusion How much has chance played a role in your life? It isn’t enough to just plan your future. Chance Will be the Defining Factor in Your Life Don’t believe it? Johnny Depp the American actor went to an audition with a friend. Why don’t people believe in chance? If you think luck doesn’t play a role in your life, you’re kidding yourself. Did you know that you can influence chance and luck in a precise way? Control is not the answer. Chaos Theory Chaos theory is about how complex the world is. Can you see how a small change affects your whole life?
Synchronicity: The Art of Coincidence – An Interview with Dr. Kirby Surprise The experience of meaningful coincidences is universal. They are reported by people of every culture, every belief system, and time period. Traditionally these synchronistic events are made acceptable by ascribing them to outside supernatural forces such as divinities, or in modern times, impersonal archetypal influences. Dr. Kirby Surprise demonstrates that synchronistic events, based on the activity of the mind, are actually caused by the person who perceives them, and reflect many levels of their consciousness. His research reveals that what we believe and the way we look for patterns in the world generates synchronistic events that mirror our own assumptions. A licensed psychologist who makes his living assessing, diagnosing and treating delusions and thought disorders, Dr. His groundbreaking new book is titled Synchronicity: The Art of Coincidence, Change, and Unlocking Your Mind (New Page Books, 2012). New Dawn recently spoke to Dr. NEW DAWN (ND): Dr. DR. “OK,” I said to myself.
How Mind-Wandering and “Positive Constructive Daydreaming” Enhance Creativity and Improve Our Social Skills by Maria Popova The science of why fantasy and imaginative escapism are essential elements of a satisfying mental life. Freud asserted that daydreaming is essential to creative writing — something a number of famous creators and theorists intuited in asserting that unconscious processing is essential to how creativity works, from T. S. Eliot’s notion of “idea incubation” to Alexander Graham Bell’s “unconscious cerebration” to Lewis Carroll’s “mental mastication.” In the 1950s, Yale psychologist Jerome L. In a recent paper titled “Ode to Positive Constructive Daydreaming” (PDF), published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, writer Rebecca McMillan and NYU cognitive psychologist Scott Kaufman, author of Ungifted: Intelligence Redefined, revisit Singer’s work to deliver new insights into how the first style of Singer’s mind-wandering, rather than robbing us of happiness, plays an essential, empowering role in daily life and creativity. Thanks, Scott Myers Donating = Loving Share on Tumblr
Colour my world Colour does not exist. Not out in the world at any rate. All that exists in the world is a smooth continuum of light of different wavelengths. Colour is a construction of our brains. A lot is known about how the brain does this, beginning with complicated circuits in the retina itself. Thanks to a new paper from Greg Field and colleagues we now have an even more detailed picture of how retinal circuits are wired to enable light to be categorized into different colours. Colour discrimination begins with the absorption of light of different wavelengths. Colour information only arises by comparing the responses of multiple cone cells. The L/M system evolved much more recently, due to a gene duplication that occurred in the lineage of Old World primates, probably around 40 million years ago. All of this raises an important question – how are the inputs to these different cone cells compared? This has been known for quite a long time now. Amazingly, this may extend to humans as well.
A Blood Soaked History: From Lilith to Dracula - The Vampire Myth Exposed - Vampire Mythology review - The Vampire Historians WARNING: This is a review of vampire myths from around the world, and it contains what some may find to be controversial and disturbing content having to do with occult subject matter, violence, sexuality, and religious folklore. Foreword Myths and legends of vampires are widespread. Tales of their existence can be found in virtually every culture across the globe and they date back to thousands of years ago. Contrary to Western beliefs, the vampire has been around since long before Bram Stoker's Dracula popularized the bloodsucking fiends and the presence of vampires have been rumored in almost every country. Indeed, these terrifying creatures of darkness are not limited to the folklore of Eastern Europe or to the confines of Gothic literature. Lilith, The Origins Of The Vampire, And Female Empowerment Through The Ages Needless to say, the rabbis, who wrote and compiled the Biblical anthology, were all men. Vampire Myths Of The Ancient World
Creation myth Creation myths develop in oral traditions and therefore typically have multiple versions[3] and are the most common form of myth, found throughout human culture.[6] Definitions[edit] In Daoist creation myth, "The Way gave birth to unity; unity gave birth to duality; duality gave birth to trinity; trinity gave birth to the myriad creatures." (Daodejing, 4th century BCE)[13] Creation myth definitions from modern references: A "symbolic narrative of the beginning of the world as understood in a particular tradition and community. Religion professor Mircea Eliade defined the word myth in terms of creation: Myth narrates a sacred history; it relates an event that took place in primordial Time, the fabled time of the "beginnings." Meaning and function[edit] All creation myths are in one sense etiological because they attempt to explain how the world was formed and where humanity came from.[18] Ethnologists and anthropologists[which?] Each beginning seems to presuppose an earlier beginning. ...
Paranormal, UFOs, Cryptids and Unexplained Phenomena Arguments can be made that the evidence for ancient astronauts comes from supposed gaps in historical and archaeological records, and they also maintain that absent or incomplete explanations of historical or archaeological data point to the existence of ancient astronauts. The evidence is said to include archaeological artifacts that are beyond the presumed technical capabilities of the historical cultures with which they are associated. This also includes artwork and legends that are interpreted as depicting extraterrestrial contact or technologies. Notwithstanding these contentions, let us say that there is an axiom to the ancient astronaut theory. I would like to periodically chronicle my speculation of how the native people interpreted these unknown entities. Anu possesses vast powers of an unknown nature, which seem to surpass the powers of any other Mesopotamian god. Anu was considered part of a triad including Enlil, god of the air and Enki, god of water.
The Power of Coincidence Targ's research was impressive enough that the National Institutes of Health gave her $1.5 million to carry out two more distant-prayer studies, one on AIDS and another on glioblastoma multiforme, an aggressive and almost inevitably fatal brain tumor. In Europe and the U.S. there are approximately two to three new cases per 100,000 people annually. "It is a particularly gnarly disease from which people rarely recover," says her father, "and that's why she wanted to study it." Two months later, Targ, who was 40, began fertility treatments: she and her fiance, physicist Mark Comings, wanted a family. That spring, however, she began finding it difficult to pronounce words with the letter "b," and one morning the left side of her face sagged. The coincidences, if we may call them that, did not end with Targ's death. In the dream, Comings (who married Targ shortly before her death) was sitting on a weathered wooden box in an old European town with cobbled streets and stone buildings.
Sam Harris on Spirituality without Religion, Happiness, and How to Cultivate the Art of Presence by Maria Popova “Our world is dangerously riven by religious doctrines that all educated people should condemn, and yet there is more to understanding the human condition than science and secular culture generally admit.” Nietzsche’s famous proclamation that “God is dead” is among modern history’s most oft-cited aphorisms, and yet as is often the case with its ilk, such quotations often miss the broader context in a way that bespeaks the lazy reductionism with which we tend to approach questions of spirituality today. Nietzsche himself clarified the full dimension of his statement six years later, in a passage from The Twilight of Idols, where he explained that “God” simply signified the supersensory realm, or “true world,” and wrote: “We have abolished the true world. What has remained? Sam Harris by Bara Vetenskap Harris writes: Our minds are all we have. Most of us spend our time seeking happiness and security without acknowledging the underlying purpose of our search. Donating = Loving
8 - Polar Mythology ©2011, montalk.net (Version 0.1 – changelog provided at end of article) The Meaning of Myth Since myths are not literal accounts of history, they are easily dismissed as superstitious tales invented by our naïve ancestors. But what society considers factual, historical, and real is only that which has taken place within linear time and 3D space, namely events witnessed through the five physical senses. Far from being less than factual, myths may depict events and dynamics that are more than factual because they hail from beyond the limited modern conception of reality, beyond linear time, and beyond the five senses. What are myths really? Like dreams, myths allow passage of information across the boundary between realms. Myths are also like time capsules with nested layers, each layer encoding information intended for one type of recipient. Entertainment and Morality Layer – the outer wrapping that ensures the myth propagates through the generations. Polar Mythology (from Hamlet’s Mill)