Richard G. Petty, MD

Healing Everything

I get a huge number of requests for more information about my philosophy of health and healing; where it came from, and why people believe that my approach is the medicine of the future: hence the amusing title of “The Future Doc.”

My belief in an “integrated” approach to health and healing, that engages the physical, psychological, social, subtle and spiritual aspects of life is not confined to the treatment and personal growth of individuals. It also encompasses ecology, sociology and business practices. In many respects I have followed a similar path to Ken Wilber, but while he has been the theorist par excellence, whose ideas are now being test-driven in a multitude of different applications, I started from personal perception and clinical practice. I talk about some of the origins of my work in Healing, Meaning and Purpose.

It is well-known that I had the privilege of working with the Prince’s Foundation for Integrated Medicine, which is now the Foundation for Integrated Health, and I recently came across this statement by His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales in the magazine Temenos that beautifully summarizes the philosophy that underlies the entire approach.

“As I have grown older I have gradually come to realize that my entire life so far has been motivated by a desire to heal - to heal the dismembered landscape and the poisoned soil; the cruelly shattered townscape, where harmony has been replaced by cacophony; to heal the divisions between intuitive and rational thought, between mind, body and soul, so that the temple of our humanity can once again be lit by a sacred flame; to level the monstrous artificial barrier erected between Tradition and Modernity and, above all, to heal the mortally wounded soul that, alone, can give us warning of the folly of playing God and of believing that knowledge on its own is a substitute for wisdom.”

Most of us realize that the world has become terribly unbalanced, with an extraordinary over-emphasis on the intellect and a tacit assumption that the world is an object to be plundered. In the halls of academia, “heart,” “intuition” and “soul” have often become dirty words, even though it is difficult to see how we can repair our imbalanced world without acknowledging the importance of all of them. This is not to decry the importance of reasoning, but it is an appeal to acknowledge the existence of the soul, to heal our connection with and to listen to her intuitive urgings.

Prince Charles has also said that,

“In medicine, as in architecture, the doctrine of man as a machine has held sway. God was declared dead - I remember it happening. The soul was declared moribund and redundant. Ancient well-tried therapies and diagnostic techniques were simply abandoned and thrown away. The balance of the rational and the intuitive was destroyed.”

I totally agree, and it is this balance that we have to restore.

Our lives depend on it.

Doctors, Integrated Health, Faith and Spirituality

I am often asked if there is any conflict between being a Catholic and a physician teaching holistic health. That always seems to me a slightly odd question: for me they fit together seamlessly.

Some time ago I was asked to see the son of two pastors from an evangelical church. They, their family, and congregation had been praying for him for three years, and they felt guilty about coming to see me. They only came because of the insistence of one of the congregation who had seen an article about my work, and thought that I looked as if I had a nice face. You, gentle reader can be the judge of that.

It was soon clear what was wrong with the son, but the family told me that they did not really believe in medication and felt that their prayers should have been enough.

My response was to ask them if they thought it possible that the Lord had led their parishioner to read the article? Is it not said that, “God works in mysterious ways?” “Is it possible that my team, and the pharmaceutical companies that make the medicines that I am recommending, could all be the answer to your prayers?” I do not know the answer, but they decided that was the case, agreed to the treatment, and the young man was back on track in a few weeks.

It is inevitably controversial whenever I talk about this kind of issue, but I think that it is important.

I would also like to share something that I had not read since I was a teenager. It came along yesterday, seemingly by chance. Except that I don’t really believe in change or coincidence.

“Honor the doctor with the honor that is his due in return for his services; for he too has been created by the Lord.”

“Healing itself comes from the Most High, like a gift from a king.”

“The doctor’s learning keeps his head high, he is regarded with awe by potentates.”

“The Lord has brought medicines into existence from the earth, and the sensible man will not despise them.”

“Did not a piece of wood once sweeten the water, thus giving proof of its virtue?”

“He has also given men learning so that they may glory in his mighty works.”

“He uses them to heal and to relieve pain, the chemist makes up a mixture from them.”

“Thus there is no end to his activities and through him health extends across the world.”

“My son, when you are ill, do not be depressed, but pray to the Lord and he will heal you.”

“Renounce your faults, keep you hands unsoiled ad cleanse your heart from all sin.”

“Offer incense and a memorial of fine flour and make as rich an offering as you can afford.”

“Then let the doctor take over – the Lord created him too – and do not let him leave you for your need him.”

“Sometimes success is in their hands, since they in turn will beseech the Lord to grant them the grace to relieve and to heal, that life may be saved.”

“If a man sins in the eyes of his Maker, may he fall under the care of the doctor.”

The Jerusalem Bible, Ecclesiasticus 38:1-15

Spirituality, Depression and Suicide

It is an interesting sign of the times that a major medical publication - the Southern Medical Journal - has dedicated an entire section this month to a series of papers on the Spirituality/Medicine Interface Project that is being supported by the John Templeton Foundation.

Attention to our spirituality is an important part of fulfilling our potential and treating people in trouble. It is no accident that Integrated Medicine always includes all of the five major dimensions of an individual:

• Physical
• Psychological
• Social
• Subtle
• Spiritual

To get a bit technical, each of the five domains or dimensions contains something of each of the others. The body, mind and spirit and not separate but part of one whole. Mind, consciousness and spirit permeate the body.

We sometimes use the technical term “Five Interlinked Nested Domains” or “FINDS,” to reflect this reality.

An important principle of this interconnected health model is that it’s almost always a mistake to look for a single cause for a problem, imbalance or illness. Not only is it usually incorrect to think about “one illness, one cause,” but it is also usually not enough to use just one therapy or one health maintenance plan: Carefully coordinated combinations are key, for they generate a powerful synergy.

Because the domains are interlinked, physical and psychological health, to say nothing of our social health, and the health of our subtle systems are difficult to maintain without spiritual health. The road to spiritual health begins with understanding and following the natural laws of the Universe, finding your true Purpose and applying both to the service of others.

The articles in this issue of the Southern Medical Journal are excellent.

Here are some highlights:
Dan Blazer from Duke University provides an introduction that gives a fine overview of the growing field of spirituality in medicine in general and depression in particular
Harold Koenig, also from Duke has an article entitled, "Spirituality and Depression: A Look at the Evidence"
Bob Cloninger from Washington University in St. Louis writes about "Spirituality and the Science of Feeling Good."

Unfortunately the abstracts and papers are not yet available on line, except to members of the Southern Medical Association. Hopefully the Templeton Foundation will be able to arrange with the Journal to make at least the abstracts freely available.

If they do, I shall let you know.

Otherwise, if you have ready access to a library, and if you are interested in this important and rapidly growing field, I am sure that they will be able to help you.

Enlightenment

Regular readers will know that I have been collecting wise words from around the globe for many years, and I now have almost 40,000 of them broken down into more than 500 topics. It has taken years not just to collect them, but to try to check the sources and wording. But if you find errors, please let me know!

Here are 23 of my favorites comments about enlightenment.

I do hope that you find them as useful and inspiring as I have.



“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”   
--Carl G. Jung (Swiss Psychologist and Psychiatrist, 1875-1961)

“Be a lamp unto your own feet; do not seek outside yourself.”   
--Buddha (a.k.a. “The Awakened”, a.k.a. Siddhartha Gautama, Indian Religious Figure and Founder of Buddhism, c.563 B.C.E. – c.483 B.C.E.)

“When the divine vision is attained, all appear equal; and there remains no distinction of good and bad, or of high and low.”   
--Sri Ramakrishna (a.k.a. Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa, Indian Hindu Mystic and Promoter of Universal Religion, 1836-1886)

“We loosely talk of Self-realization, for lack of a better term.  But how can one realize or make real that which alone is real? All we need to do is to give up our habit of regarding as real that which is unreal. All religious practices are meant solely to help us do this. When we stop regarding the unreal as real, then reality alone will remain, and we will be that.”   
--Ramana Maharshi (Indian Hindu Mystic and Spiritual Teacher, 1879-1950)

“We attain enlightenment when we love truth for the sake of truth, and not for the sake of self-promotion or worldly gain.”   
--Emanuel Swedenborg (Swedish Scientist, Mystic and Philosopher, 1688-1772)

“Once and for all, dedicate yourself to the service of a high ideal, to the coming of the kingdom of God, and do not be concerned with what will become of you. This ideal will bring you everything."
--Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov (Bulgarian Spiritual Master, 1900-1986)

“The holy instant is the recognition that all minds are in communication. Every thought you would keep hidden shuts off communication.”
--A Course in Miracles (Book of Spiritual Principles Scribed by Dr. Helen Schucman between 1965 and 1975, and First Published in 1976)

“If you are enlightened, you are not free, as some people say, but you are freedom itself. Not like a bird in the sky, but like the sky itself.”
--Wolter A. Keers (Dutch Advaita Teacher and Editor, 1923-1985)

“The reason why so few people find enlightenment is because they have free will and punish themselves by making wrong choices. Constantly, enlightenment is being offered to them, but they refuse to accept it. Therefore they refuse to accept it. Therefore they are being taught problems that are set before them, since they refuse to make choices voluntarily.”
--“Peace Pilgrim” (a.k.a. Mildred Norman, American Peace Activist, 1908-1981)

“All the riches of this world are too less a price for a single word which enlightens the soul.”    
--Hazrat Inayat Khan (Founder of the Sufi Order of the West, 1882-1927)

“To the dull mind all nature is leaden. To the enlightened mind the whole world sparkles and burns”   
--Ralph Waldo Emerson (American Poet and Essayist, 1803-1882)

“Enlightenment must come little by little, otherwise it would overwhelm.”   
--Idries Shah (Afghan-born Sufi Philosopher and Writer, 1924-1996)

“Out of compassion I destroy the darkness of their ignorance. From within them I light the lamp of wisdom and dispel all darkness from their lives.”   
--Bhagavad Gita (Ancient and Sacred Sanskrit Poem Incorporated into the Mahabharata)

“If these little sparks of holy fire which I have thus heaped together do not give life to your prepared and already enkindled spirit, yet they will sometimes help to entertain a thought, to actuate a passion, to employ and hallow a fancy.”
--Jeremy Taylor (English Anglican Clergyman, Writer and Bishop, 1613-1667)

“The great beacon light God sets in all, the conscience of each bosom.”
--Robert Browning (English Poet, 1812-1889)

“God reveals himself unfailingly to the thoughtful seeker.”
--Honoré de Balzac (French Novelist, 1799-1850)

“There is no difference between an enlightened man and an ignorant one. What makes the difference is that the one realizes it, while the other is kept in ignorance of it.”
--Hui-Neng (a.k.a. Daikan Eno, Chinese Chan Monk, A.D. 638-713)

“You may have expected that enlightenment would come Zap! Instantaneous and permanent. This is unlikely. After the first "ah ha" experience, it can be thought of as the thinning of a layer of clouds...”   
--Ram Dass (a.k.a. Richard Alpert, American Spiritual Teacher, Author and Lecturer, 1931-)

“God realization does not begin in a cave high atop the Himalayas. It begins in the pots and pans of the kitchen. Treat all your tasks, however small, as opportunities to see God and serve him.”
Sri Swami Sivananda (Indian Physician and Spiritual Teacher, 1887-1963)

“Enlightenment is not an attainment: it is a realization. When you wake up, everything changes and nothing changes. If a blind man realizes that he can see, has the world changed?”   
--Dan Millman (American Writer, Philosopher and Former World Class Trampolinist, 1947-)

“Enlightenment is the highest good. Once you have it, nobody can take it away from you.”   
--Siddharameshwar Maharaj (Indian Spiritual Teacher, 1888-1936)

“Is enlightenment really possible for the average person? Yes. Big Yes. Enlightenment is very possible for the ordinary individual. Actually it is easier than for some one who thinks that they are special.... whenever someone is ordinary, simple, innocent and natural, that is enlightenment.”   
--Sri Sri Ravishankar (Indian Spiritual Teacher and Founder of the Art of Living Foundation and the International Association for Human Values, 1956-)

The Integrated Approach to Maintaining a Healthy Weight

Regular readers will have noticed that I have been posting much less than usual over the last couple of months. It is not that I have run out of things to say (!), but I have been working on some new projects that I shall be telling you about fairly soon.

There has also been something else that I had not planned to talk about until a conversation that I had a couple of days ago. I mentioned in passing that I had noticed that my weight had crept up a bit over the last couple of years, but that I had identified the reasons, corrected it, and lost twenty pounds over the last eight weeks. I was immediately surrounded by people wanting to know the secret. Well it’s no secret. It is a series of techniques that I, and people that I have trained, have used with thousands of people over the last thirty years. Then I realized that this secret had somehow not got as much coverage or publicity as it should have.

The other day I was talking to someone who has had some legitimate concerns about her weight for over ten years. She has tried every fad diet going, and has spent a fortune on books, tapes and courses. All to no avail.

I asked her, “Why do you keep falling for these fad diets? They are the nutritional equivalent of get-rich-quick schemes!”

“But there must be an answer somewhere,” she replied.

Well, she was half right: there is an Answer that is based on impeccable scientific research, and has been validated with tens of thousands of people. But it is not a fancy diet, supplement or exercise plan.

The first point is that we never recommend, “dieting” to get healthy. You get healthy so that your body can keep you do the work that it was designed to do. And that includes keeping you at your ideal weight.

Humans participate in multiple relationships, from our cells to our soul, and from the smallest atoms to the largest galaxies: we are connected to all of them. Weight problems invariably imply an imbalance in one or more of these relationships. We are more than physical bodies. We are also psychological, social and spiritual beings who are engaged in these multiple relationships. And the quality of these relationships is essential to our well bring.

The approach that we have used for three decades is very precise and consists of two parts.

First is the Plan: a series of steps that involve the re-integrations of your body with your mind, your relationships, the subtle systems of your body and your spirituality. Part Two consists of a series of “Rescues and Re-starts.” Anybody who has ever tried a weight management program knows that it is easy to fall off the wagon. There are times when things happen. You are tempted to miss an exercise session or to eat something that your body does not need. The beginner’s mistake is to respond by feeling bad, becoming disheartened or having someone reprimand you. Those are all a waste of energy. The smart thing is to have a series of sixty-second strategies that rescue you and start you on the Plan.

The first step is to treat you body so that you are ready to achieve and maintain a healthy weight. Remember the “hidden” causes of weight gain:

• Stress
• Salt
• Pesticides
• Viruses
• Intestinal bacteria

It can he hard to rid ourselves of all of these, but we can certainly reduce the effect that they have on us.

There may be other physical factors that contribute to weight problems. One that has recently attracted some publicity has been the idea that some people have a “leaky gut” – and increase in intestinal permeability - that allows them to absorb toxins that should stay out of the circulation. I have a friend and colleague who, starting in the early 1980s, did a ton of research on intestinal permeability in illnesses like alcoholism, celiac disease, inflammatory bowel disease, arthritis and schizophrenia. I also did a study of intestinal permeability in migraine, which was negative. There certainly are ways in which intestinal permeability can be increased: alcohol, allergies and some drugs will do it. But so far the evidence that increased intestinal permeability is a common cause of weight problems or other symptoms is not good. That could always change: that is what science is all about: testing falsifiable hypotheses and changing models, practice and recommendations if the evidence changes.

After attending to the physical side of weight maintenance, we go on to recommend some simple psychological work. As I said at the beginning, if your brain thinks that you are trying to kill yourself by starving to death, it will sabotage you: millions of years of evolution have designed you to stay alive and to put on weight whenever possible. So we it is essential to understand and work with those psychological mechanisms from the very beginning.

But it is not enough to simply change your thinking: much of your behavior is driven by unconscious, preconscious and subconscious “thoughts.” We also have several sets of emotional systems that drive our behavior. What’s more, there are separate sets of habits and automatic behaviors that we need to identify and deal with. We also have to deal with the effects of certain foods on your moods and perceptions: countless eating plans have failed because nobody considered that a person might be sensitive or allergic to some foods, or that changes in diet can have a big impact on the way in which our brains function. When we work with all of them the results start to come in very quickly.

We also have to deal with the social aspects of weight: have you been stigmatized because of weight? Have you been sabotaged by people around you, or family members? Do you or your family use meal times to socialize? Do you constantly eat out? There are a huge number of social issues that can mess with healthy eating. Ignore them, and it will be nearly impossible to achieve your aims.

We then also work on any disorganization or blockages in the subtle systems of the body, as well as the spiritual aspects of health and wellness.

It may sound odd to talk about spirituality when considering weight management and health, but they are inseparable.

It is only after we have done all of those things that we look at the precise composition of your diet, tailored to your age and gender. Just as important as what you eat, is when you eat. The way in which you exercise, stretch, breath and sleep can be as important as what and when you eat, and each has to be carefully tailored to the individual.

On a future occasion I shall explain exactly how your can work with each of the five systems of you body – Physical, Psychological, Social, Subtle and Spiritual – to create and maintain vibrant health and a radiance that at the moment you can only dream about.

That’s a promise!

“I don't eat junk foods, and I don't think junk thoughts.”
--Peace Pilgrim (a.k.a. Mildred Norman, American Peace Activist, 1908-1981)

“He that takes medicine and neglects diet, wastes the skill of the physician.”
--Chinese Proverb

“Give the body the attention it deserves, but not more. When you cultivate the attitude that you are the body, the body will demand from you more food, more variety in food, more attention to appearance and physical comfort.”
--Sathya Sai Baba (Indian Spiritual Teacher, c.1926-)

Diseases of Discipleship

You will not find them listed on WebMD, but “Diseases of Discipleship” are nonetheless very real. I have mentioned them in Healing Meaning and Purpose and also here. They are the result of sudden access to spiritual energies that can upset the balance of the body, mind and spirit. The great value of having a teacher is to help you balance and work with these energies without being harmed by them.

Several of my own teachers talked a lot about these diseases of discipleship, but I would particularly like to single out Douglas Baker and the writings of Roberto Assagioli, Del Pe, Torkom Saraydarian, Stan Grof and Alice Bailey.

I have also had a great deal of experience with people undergoing spiritual crises. Many have been referred to me by priests, clergy and intuitives, because many of the individuals thought that they were “going crazy,” and some had ben given psychiatric diagnoses. That extensive experience has helped me and some of my students to describe some of the “symptoms” in more detail.

Roberto Assagioli identified five critical points where problems may arise:

1. Just before spiritual awakening begins
2. Crises caused by spiritual awakening
3. Reactions to spiritual awakening
4. Phases of the process of transmutation
5. The “Dark Night of the Soul”

Today I am just going to focus on the crises caused by spiritual awakening, because a great many people are experiencing them at the moment.

Here are some of the more common signs and symptoms include:

• Visual disturbances
• Extreme sensitivity to light and sound
• Paradoxically they often also find a raised pain threshold
• Increased metabolic rate, which may cause a slight increase in body temperature and a little weight loss
• Variable libido: some people lose all interest in sex, but most experience an increase in sexual desire, which can take them and any partners by surprise
• Disturbances in circadian rhythms
• Disturbances in thyroid and adrenal function: the thyroid often becomes slightly – or sometimes more than slightly – overactive and the adrenal glands slightly less responsive to stimulation
• Hypoglycemia
• Hypertension
• Chronic fatigue
• Anxiety and a feeling of “butterflies” in the region of the solar plexus
• Inexplicable sensations roughly corresponding to the channels identified in Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine
• Irregular breathing patterns, usually hyperventilation
• Something that feels like electricity under the tongue and under the palate
• Crying for no readily apparent reason
• As peoples’ consciousness rises, it is quite common to experience “Synesthesia” in which senses overlap: people may taste sounds, feel colors and “hear and see” with different parts of the body
• Psychic abilities often begin to appear: clairvoyance, clairaudience, spiritual intuition and the ability to heal
• Many begin to feel and see their own Inner Light and the Inner Light of other people

Not everyone gets all of these symptoms and they may come and go for a while. Some people don't get any at all, but they are unusual. There are two books by Hazel Courteney that detail some of what happened to her, and they are well worth a read.

It is important to emphasize that all of these signs and symptoms can also be caused by illnesses. So although most people who are going through all this want to avoid doctors, it is a very good idea to ensure that everything is okay. I once saw someone who had been told that she was having a kundalini experience, even though she did not have any of the usual features. She became very unwell, but felt much better when an insulin-producing tumor was removed from her pancreas.

The most important thing is to help people remain grounded. I have seen many people become extremely grandiose and even fanatical after going through a rapid spiritual awakening. It is also important to ensure that any physical symptoms - such as thyroid or blood pressure problems - do not continue unchecked.

Helping people who are going through spiritual change or crisis needs the help of a person or persons who understand physical and psychological problems, as well as being some way along the path of spiritual development. By “crisis” I do not mean crisis of faith, but a critical turning point in an individual’s personal development.

There are plenty of good ways of grounding using some physical, psychological and subtle system exercises. I have dozens of excellent techniques that I can publish if you are interested. Sometimes it is also a good idea to eat some heavy food.

It can be very helpful to get away form other people for a while. This doesn’t mean becoming a monk or nun, but just to avoid a bad case of people poisoning. In their overly sensitive state they can pick up a lot of negative things from the people around them. I have known a good many people who would begin to experience all the physical and psychological symptoms of the people around them.

Once we have confirmed that the person does not have all this as a result of thyroid disease or anxiety, it is essential to show them what is going on and the best way to approach and conceptualize it.

Next we help people to control some of the impulses that can otherwise swamp them. One of the many reasons for development of the sophisticated mind control techniques developed by Tibetan Buddhism was to help people watch their spiritual unfoldment without being overwhelmed by it.

We also try to help people to transmute psychological energies so that they can be used constructively.

Everybody is different, but in some people acupuncture, qigong, Reiki and homeopathy have all been helpful. Several of the flower essences can be very useful, in particular:
Vervain
Star Tulip
White Yarrow
Pink Yarrow

Every expert that I know in the field of spiritual development agrees with my observation that there are currently more people having major spiritual changes than ever before. It is essential for us all to know how to protect, support and birth them.

“To penetrate into the essence of all being and significance, and to release the fragrance of that inner attainment for the guidance and benefit of others, by expressing in the world of forms - truth, love, purity and beauty - this is the sole game that has any intrinsic and absolute worth. All other incidents and attainments can, in themselves, have no lasting importance.”
--Meher Baba (Indian Spiritual Teacher who, from July 1925 maintained Silence, 1894-1969)

“You knock at the door of Reality. You shake your thought wings, loosen your shoulders, and open.”
--Jalal al-Din Rumi (Afghan Sufi Poet, 1207-1273)

“Life is a series of awakenings.”
--Sri Swami Sivananda (Indian Physician and Spiritual Teacher, 1887-1963)

“What we usually call human evolution is the awakening of the Divine Nature within us.”
--“Peace Pilgrim” (a.k.a. Mildred Norman, American Peace Activist, 1908-1981)

The Internet Sacred Text Archive

I have been commenting about the important new initiatives in open access and I don't want to forget to let you know about another resource that I've used for years.

It is the Internet Sacred Text Archive.

This is what it says:

Welcome to the largest freely available archive of full-text books about religion, mythology, folklore and the esoteric on the Internet. The site is dedicated to religious tolerance and scholarship, and has the largest readership of any similar site on the web.

They ask for support for the site by buying sacred-texts on disk. This is a complete library of over a thousand of the most important books ever written. It includes the complete text of all major world scriptures, and hundreds of books scanned specially for sacred-texts.

I have one of the earlier disks and it is superb. I am going to upgrade to the new one to support this very worthwhile venture.

These are just a few of the categories on the website:
Baha'i
Buddhism
Celtic
Christianity
Classics
Confucianism
DNA
Earth Mysteries
Egyptian
England
Esoteric/Occult
Freemasonry
Gnosticism
Hinduism
I Ching
Islam
Jainism
Shakespeare
Shamanism
Shinto
Sikhism
Swedenborg
Theosophy
Time
Utopia
Women
Zoroastrianism

And these are some recent additions:

The House of the Hidden Places (1/9/2007)
The Satapatha Brahmana, Part IV (SBE 43) (12/19/2006)
Lives of the Saints (12/14/2006)
The Hieroglyphics of Horapollo (12/12/2006)
The Rosetta Stone (12/5/2006)
Devil Worship in France (12/3/2006)
Tractate Berakoth (12/2/2006)
The Satapatha Brahmana, Part III (SBE 41) (11/29/2006)
Nostradamus: The Man Who Saw Through Time (11/21/2006)
Proofs of a Conspiracy (11/18/2006)
Original Hebrew of a Portion of Ecclesiasticus (with the Alphabet of Ben Sira) (11/15/2006)
Tractate Sanhedrin (11/8/2006)
The Satapatha Brahmana, Part II (SBE 26) (11/5/2006)
Unveiled Mysteries (10/18/2006)
The Myth of the Birth of the Hero (10/16/2006)
The Satapatha Brahmana, Part I (SBE 12) (10/7/2006)
The Religions of South Vietnam in Faith and Fact (10/4/2006)
Karezza, Ethics of Marriage (10/3/2006)
The Comte de St. Germain (10/1/2006)
A Miracle in Stone: or The Great Pyramid of Egypt (9/28/2006)
The Love Letters of Abelard and Heloise (9/18/2006)
The Brahan Seer (9/13/2006)
Noa Noa (9/6/2006)
The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ (8/30/2006)
History of Philosophy in Islam (8/27/2006)
Forty-four Turkish Fairy Tales (8/8/2006)
Folk-lore of the Holy Land; Moslem, Christian and Jewish (7/29/2006)

An excellent resource.

Charles Tart's Library

If you are at all interested in altered states of consciousness, transpersonal psychology, parapsychology or spirituality, you will find a great many useful and interesting papers written by Professor Charles Tart.

I was smitten by his work when I read his classic book Altered States of Consciousness in 1969, and he reamins one of the most respected figures in these fields

I have followed his work closely ever since, and his library of free articles is a treasure trove containing papers written between 1963 and 2006.

Charlie is currently a Core Faculty Member at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology in Palo Alto, California, a Senior Research Fellow of the Institute of Noetic Sciences in Sausalito, California, as well as Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the Davis campus of the University of California.

I would like to thank him and many publishers for making all this material freely available.

Martin Luther King Day

In the United States, today is Martin Luther King day, and we are hearing numerous glowing tributes as well as commentary about what still needs to be done.

I was only a child when Dr. King was assassinated and living thousands of miles away in a part of the country and a school that was largely color blind, I knew little of the terrible discrimination which was still a fact of life in the United States. And in some places still is.

But what I remember was the extraordinary oratory that still sends chills down my spine.

His insights and his statements are timeless, and like Mahatma Gandhi before him, he was more than a social reformer, he was a World Teacher.

When we are hearing Truth, it can usually be applied in more than one setting: many of Dr. King’s principles about harmony, brotherhood and equality can also be applied in to the health and harmony of the body and our interpersonal relationships.

This is a good day to ponder on what he said, and here are a few quotations from my collection. I hope that you will find some of them as inspirational as I have.

“A lie cannot live.”

“A man who won't die for something is not fit to live."

“A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.”

“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.”

“A right delayed is a right denied.”

“A riot is the language of the unheard.”

“All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence."

“Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.”

“An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law."

“Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can't ride you unless your back is bent.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness, in a descending spiral of destruction. The chain reaction of evil must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.”

“Discrimination is a hellhound that gnaws at Negroes in every waking moment of their lives to remind them that the lie of their inferiority is accepted as truth in the society dominating them.”

“Don’t hate, it’s too big a burden to bear”

“Each of us is something of a schizophrenic personality, tragically divided against ourselves.”

“Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.”

“Every man is someone because he is a child of God.”

“Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness."

“Everyone can be great, because everyone can serve.”

“Everything that is done in the world is done by hope.”

“Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see.”

“Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.”

“Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”

“Goodness defeated is stronger than evil triumphant”

“Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illumines it.”

“Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies - or else? The chain reaction of evil - hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars - must be broken, or else we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.”

“He (Jesus) knew that the old eye-for-eye philosophy would leave everyone blind. He did not seek to overcome evil with evil. He overcame evil with good. Although crucified by hate, he responded with aggressive love.”

“History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people."

“Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.”

“Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted”

"I am not interested in power for power's sake, but I'm interested in power that is moral, that is right and that is good."

“I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. That is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.”

“I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal." … I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.”

“I just want to do God's will. And he's allowed me to go to the mountain. And I've looked over, and I've seen the promised land! I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land."

“I look forward confidently to the day when all who work for a living will be one with no thought to their separateness as Negroes, Jews, Italians or any other distinctions. This will be the day when we bring into full realization the American dream; a dream yet unfulfilled. A dream of equality of opportunity, of privilege and property widely distributed; a dream of a land where men will not take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few; a dream of a land where men will not argue that the color of a man's skin determines the content of his character; a dream of a nation where all our gifts and resources are held not for ourselves alone, but as instruments of service for the rest of humanity; the dream of a country where every man will respect the dignity and worth of the human personality.”

“I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

"I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word."

"I want to be the white man's brother, not his brother-in-law."

“If a man is called to be street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the host of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.”

"If man hasn't discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live.”

"If physical death is the price that I must pay to free my white brothers and sisters from a permanent death of the spirit, then nothing can be more redemptive."

"If we are to go forward, we must go back and rediscover those precious values - that all reality hinges on moral foundations and that all reality has spiritual control."

“If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps life moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all. And so today I still have a dream.”

“If you succumb to the temptation of using violence in the struggle, unborn generations will be the recipients of a long and desolute night of bitterness, and your chief legacy to the future will be an endless reign of meaningless chaos."

"If you will protest courageously, and yet with dignity and Christian love, when the history books are written in future generations, the historians will have to pause and say, "There lived a great people - a black people - who injected new meaning and dignity into the veins of civilization."

"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”

“Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.”

“Life's most persistent and urgent question is: what are you doing for others?”

“Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice. Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love.”

“Lives begin to end the day we become silent on the things that matter.”

“Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into friend.”

“Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.”

“My faith in man is, at bottom, a faith in God.”

“My place is in the sunshine of opportunity.”

“Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal."

“Never succumb to the temptation of bitterness.”

“Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals.”

"Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him."

"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."

“Occasionally in life there are those moments of unutterable fulfillment which cannot be completely explained by those symbols called words. Their meanings can only be articulated by the inaudible language of the heart.”

"Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.”

“Oh, the worst of tragedies is not to die young, but to live until
I am seventy-five and yet not ever truly to have lived.”

"One day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal we seek, but that it is a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means.”

“One who breaks an unjust law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.”

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

“Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.”

“Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.”

“Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary.”

“Put yourself in a state of mind where you say to yourself, "Here is an opportunity for me to celebrate like never before, my own power, my own ability to get myself to do whatever is necessary."

"Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think."

“Real peace is not the absence of conflict, it is the presence of justice.”

"Science investigates religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power religion gives man wisdom which is control."

"Seeing is not always believing."

"Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will."

"So I'm happy tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!”

“Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”

"The art of acceptance is the art of making someone who has just done you a small favor wish that he might have done you a greater one.”

“The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: "If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?" But... the good Samaritan reversed the question: "If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?”

“The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood.”

“The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict.”

“The limitation of riots, moral questions aside, is that they cannot win and their participants know it. Hence, rioting is not revolutionary but reactionary because it invites defeat. It involves an emotional catharsis, but it must be followed by a sense of futility."

“The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live. Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.”

“The moral arc of the universe bends at the elbow of justice.”

“The old law about an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind.”

"The quality, not the longevity, of one's life is what is important.”

"The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be.”

“The strong man is the man who can stand up for his rights and not hit back.”

“The time is always right to do what is right.”

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

"There is nothing more tragic than to find an individual bogged down in the length of life, devoid of breadth.”

"Through our scientific genius, we have made this world a neighborhood; now through our moral and spiritual development, we must make of it a brotherhood."

"We are not makers of history. We are made by history."

"We are prone to judge success by the index of our salaries or the size of our automobile rather than by the quality of our service and relationship to mankind.”

"We have flown the air like birds and swum the sea like fishes, but have yet to learn the simple act of walking the earth like brothers.”

"We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now."

"We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.”

"We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies."

“We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.

“We must use time creatively and forever realize that the time is ripe to do what's right."

"We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.”

"We will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. "

"We will speed the day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing ...Free at last, Free at last, Thank God Almighty, I'm free at last.”

“What does not destroy me, makes me strong.” (Paraphrasing Nietzsche)

“Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.”

"....when we let it ring from every village, and every hamlet, from every state and every city , we will be able to speed up the day when all of god children...will be able to join hands and sing in the words of that old Negro spiritual, 'free at last! free at last! Thank God almighty, we are free at last!”

"Without justice, there can be no peace. He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it.”

"Without love, benevolence becomes egotism.”

Albert Schweitzer

Today is the birthday of Albert Schweitzer who was born in  Kaysersberg, Alsace-Lorraine, Germany. It is one of those parts of the world that has often changed hands and is now in Haut-Rhin, Alsace, France.

He was a remarkable man: as a youngster he was a famous organist and was highly interested in the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, whom he regarded as a religious mystic.

He decided that after the age of 30 he would dedicate himself to the service of humanity and became both a theologian and physician. He received the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize in 1953 for his philosophy of "reverence for life" expressed in many ways but most famously in founding and sustaining the Lambaréné Hospital in Gabon, west central Africa.

I have heard some people be very critical of Schweitzer, describing him as patronizing toward Africa. I don't think that is right. If you look at his actions and his writings, it is clear that he had an extraordinary compassion and vision.

Here are a few of his writings from my own collection. I hope that you find some of them as inspirational as I have.


“A great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up.”

“A heavy guilt rests upon us for what the whites of all nations have done to the colored peoples. When we do good to them, it is not benevolence it is atonement.”

“A man can do only what he can do. But if he does that each day he can sleep at night and do it again the next day.”

“A man does not have to be an angel to be a saint.”

"All the kindness which a man puts out into the world
works on the heart and thoughts of mankind.”

“All work that is worth anything is done in faith.”

“An idea is, in the end, always stronger than circumstances.”

“Anyone who proposes to do good must not expect people to roll stones out of their way, but must accept their lot calmly, even if people roll a few stones upon it.”

“As soon as man does not take his existence for granted, but beholds it as something unfathomably mysterious, thought begins.”

“As we acquire more knowledge, things do not become more comprehensible, but more mysterious.”

“At that point in life where your talent meets the needs of the world, that is where God wants you to be.”

“At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.”

“Be faithful to your love and you will be recompensed beyond measure.”

“Because I have confidence in the power of Truth and of the spirit, I believe in the future of mankind.”

“By having reverence for life, we enter into a spiritual relation with the world.”

“Do something wonderful, people may imitate it.”

“Ethical existence is the highest manifestation of spirituality.”

“Ethics, too, are nothing but reverence for life. That is what gives me the fundamental principle of morality, namely, that good consists in maintaining, promoting, and enhancing life, and that destroying, injuring, and limiting life are evil.”

“Every man has to seek his own way to make himself more noble and to realize his own true worth”

“Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.”

“Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.”

“I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.”

“I have always held firmly to the thought that each one of us can do a little to bring some portion of misery to an end.”

"If you love what you are doing, you will be successful."

“In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.”

“In the same way as the tree bears the same fruit year after year, but each time new fruit, all lastingly valuable ideas in thinking must always be reborn.”

“It seemed to me a matter of course that we should all take our share of the burden of pain which lies upon the world.”

“Knowing all truth is less than doing a little bit of good.”

“Man has lost the capacity to foresee and to forestall.  He will end by destroying the earth.”

“Man is a clever animal who behaves like an imbecile.”

“Medicine is not only a science, but also the art of letting our own individuality interact with the individuality of the patient.”

“Natural and super-natural, temporal and eternal - continuums, not absolutes.”

“No ray of sunshine is ever lost,  but the green which it awakens into existence needs time to sprout,  and it is not always granted for the sower to see the harvest. All work that is worth anything is done in faith.”

“One thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve.”

“One truth stands firm. All that happens in world history rests on something spiritual. If the spiritual is strong, it creates world history. If it is weak, it suffers world history.”

“One who gains strength by overcoming obstacles possesses the only strength which can overcome adversity.”

“Only those who respect the personality of others can be of real use to them.”

“Reverence for life affords me my fundamental principle of morality, namely that good consists in maintaining, assisting, and enhancing life, and that to destroy, to harm, or to hinder life is evil.”

“Success is not the key to happiness; Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.”

“The awareness that we are all human beings together has become lost in war and through politics.”

“The first step in the evolution of ethics is an enlargement of the sense of solidarity with other human beings.”

“The greatest discovery of any generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of  mind.” (He is here reiterating something said by the great psychologist and philosopher William James)

“The human spirit is not dead. It lives on in secret.... It has come to believe that compassion, in which all ethics must take root, can only attain its full breadth and depth if it embraces all living creatures and does not limit itself to mankind.”

“The man who has become a thinking being feels a compulsion to give to every will-to-live the same reverence for life that he gives to his own.”

“The tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he lives.”

“The true worth of a man is not to be found in man himself, but in the colors and textures that come alive in others.”

“There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.”

“There is no higher religion than human service. To work for the common good is the greatest creed.”

“There is so much coldness in the world because we are afraid to be as cordial as we really are.”

“To educate yourself for gratitude means to take nothing for granted but to seek out and value the kindness that lies behind the action.”

“Until he extends his circle of compassion to include all living things, man will not himself find peace.”

“Very little of the great cruelty shown by men can really be attributed to cruel instinct. Most of it comes from thoughtlessness or inherited habit. The roots of cruelty, therefore, are not so much strong as widespread. But the time must come when inhumanity protected by custom and thoughtlessness will succumb before humanity championed by thought. Let us work that this time may come.”

“We cannot possibly let ourselves get frozen into regarding everyone we do not know as an absolute stranger.”

“Wherever a man turns he can find someone who needs him.”

“Your life is something opaque, not transparent, as long as you look at it in an ordinary human way.  But if you hold it up against the light of God's goodness, it shines and turns transparent, radiant and bright.  And then you ask yourself in amazement:  Is this really my own life I see before me?”

The Biology of Beauty

When we think about the characteristics that make someone physically attractive most of us probably think that they are purely subjective and culture bound. But recent evidence suggests that this is not true.

In an astonishingly comprehensive study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, Devendra Singh from the University of Texas at Austin has analyzed references to fictional beauties from modern times back to early Indian literature. He found that slimness of the waist was the most common term of praise from an author.

I found it very surprising that this association even seemed to hold in times when a more Rubenesque figure was in fashion.

But I think that the key is not the actual number of inches, but the ratio of waist to hips.I have commented several times that the waist to hip ratio is probably a better physical marker of health risk than body mass index (BMI). Though even this needs to be supplemented by other tests.

Professor Singh's work has nothing to do with making value judgments, but is instead looking at some of the factors involved in mate selection and this work adds to evidence highlighting the role of the ratio between waist and hips in attracting a mate.

All the recent furor over the dangerously shrinking fashion model has again raised the question that although female waist size has become important in modern Western society and culture - and is likely a factor fueling eating disorders - it is not completely clear whether this waist obsession has always been the case.

In what can only be described as a labor of love, Singh has spent years examining representations of women through history, and in one study, he measured the waist-hip ratio of hundreds of statues from different eras.

In the most recent research, he looked at how "attractive" women were depicted in literature, analyzing more than 345,000 texts, mainly from the 16th to 18th centuries. While most of the writings were British and American, there was a small selection of Indian and Chinese romantic and erotic poetry dating from the 1st to the 6th century of the Christian era.

Singh had this to say: "The common historical assumption in the social sciences has been that the standards of beauty are arbitrary, solely culturally determined and in the eye of the beholder. The finding that the writers describe a small waist as beautiful suggests instead that this body part - a known marker of health and fertility - is a core feature of feminine beauty that transcends ethnic differences and cultures."

Other studies have found a link between a woman's waist to hip ratio and her fertility which may offer some explanation as to why during evolution it became a factor in selecting a mate. The ratio, like breast size and smooth complexion, is partly under the control of estrogen, which is, of course, a key hormone in the maintenance of fertility.

There has been a great deal of work - and even more speculation - about why men and women are found physically attractive. The idea is that beauty is an indicator of genetic and developmental health. There is also some evidence that physically "attractive" people are healthier than less attractive people.

In 2004 Satoshi Kanazawa and Jody Kovar from the London School of Economics published an intriguing study in the journal Intelligence with the controversial title: “Why Beautiful People are More Intelligent."

The basic idea is that evolutionary processes have, both genetically and socially, led to what we call assortative mating, in which partners have been chosen for their strength, good health and even height: all attributes which have given their possessors a high status. I must be honest that even though I've seen the data, when I see and hear some of the comments of a few people in the public eye I still question the association between beauty and intelligence.

There appear to be a few features that characterize physically attractive faces: bilateral symmetry, averageness, and secondary sexual characteristics. Attractive faces tend to be more symmetrical than unattractive faces. 

Fluctuating asymmetry (FA) - random differences between the two sides of the face - is usually not found to be attractive. And this may be why: it increases with exposure to parasites, pathogens, and toxins during development. FA also increases with genetic disruptions, such as mutations and inbreeding. Developmentally and genetically, healthy individuals have less FA and more symmetry in their facial and bodily features.

Across many societies around the world, there is a positive correlation between parasite and pathogen prevalence in the environment and the importance placed on physical attractiveness in mate selection. The theory is that in societies where there are a lot of pathogens and parasites it is especially important to avoid individuals who have been afflicted with them when they select mates. 

Facial averageness in another feature that increases physical attractiveness: faces with features close to the population average are more attractive than those with extreme features. The evolutionary reasons for why average faces in the population are more attractive than extreme faces are not as clear as the reasons for why facial symmetry is attractive. Some current speculation is that facial averageness results from the heterogeneity rather than homogeneity of genes so that would mean that individuals with average faces are more resistant to a larger number of parasites. Therefore like FA, facial averageness may be an indicator of genetic health and parasitic resistance.

There is good data that infants as young as 2-3 months gaze longer at a face that adults have judged attractive rather than a face judged unattractive. And other research has shown that 12 month old infants exhibit more observable pleasure, more play involvement, less distress, and less withdrawal when interacting with strangers wearing attractive masks, than with strangers wearing unattractive masks. They also play significantly longer with facially attractive dolls than with unattractive dolls.

2-12 months is not nearly enough time for infants to have learned and internalized the cultural standards of beauty through socialization and media exposure. So the research data seems to suggest that the standards of beauty might be innate, rather than learned.

Even though there is all this evidence for a evolutionary and biological factors in beauty, it is a mistake to use such a simple model  to try and explain away all of our partner preferences.

By the time that they leave high school, most people have grasped that physical attractiveness is an important first step in attraction, but after that becomes highly subjective: delightful but not essential.

This work also fails to take into account the attractiveness of factors like radiance, humor, attention, attentiveness, energy, self-assurance, movement, grace and gesture.

Neither can it take account curiosity, presence, charisma, compassion and spiritual awareness. All of these can be extremely attractive, but are hard to explain on simple biological and evolutionary models.

And, by the way, all of these additional factors can be learned: whatever your weight and measurements, whether you are tall or less so and whatever your age.

You can learn to develop many of the things that genetics may have forgotten.

“Beauty awakens the soul to act.” --Dante Alighieri (Italian Poet and Philosopher, 1265-1321)

“Beauty is not in the face, beauty is a light in the heart.” --Kahlil Gibran (Lebanese Poet and Philosopher, 1883-1931)

Wishing You Great Learning Opportunities in the New Year!

“The world is the great gymnasium where we come to make ourself strong.”
--Swami Vivekananda (Indian Hindu Mystic and Spiritual Teacher, 1863-1902)

A lot of people tell me that they are pleased to see the back of 2006, and we certainly had more than our fair share of challenges during the year, having lost four members of our family in just a few months. The fact that they were not all human didn’t change the impact one bit.

But for all the people who have told me about their negative thoughts about the year I’ve said the same thing: the year has actually been a terrific learning experience. That’s not to say that we should slap a big smiley face on every pain, hardship and adversity, but it does mean that it is essential for all of us to try and find the meaning in the events that have happened in our lives.

When Nietzsche said “That which does not kill me makes me stronger,” he was giving voice to a peculiarly Germanic ideal of the time: that people need to be tested and tempered like steel. That’s not what I mean at all.

The three best and most effective ways of dealing with adversity are first to extract meaning from the event or situation: “Why is this happening?” “Is it just dumb bad luck or is there more to it?”

The second essential is to learn to detach from an event, so that it no longer has its emotional claws in you.

And the third is to accept a situation. Not in some passive way of letting life bowl you over, but of being able to acknowledge an experience and then using it as the basis for wise action.

Each of these can take a lifetime to learn the hard way, but you can actually master them very quickly with a series of simple steps.

I am going to be sharing some of them with you in the coming months. I am also going to be publishing an eBook on the topic of resilience, because detachment and acceptance come much more easily to the person with robust resilience.

Having recently had to make a number of unexpected trips overseas has delayed our publication schedule by three months, but we shall be back on track by the end of January.

And here's a final thought for you from Healing, Meaning and Purpose: adversity is an invitation to grow. If approached in the right way, apparently negative events can lead to a shift in your consciousness and rapid spiritual development.

In fact the majority of my own teachers could trace their spiritual maturation to major life events that at the time seemed to be the end of the world.

Remember that what the caterpillar thinks to be the end of the world, is, for the butterfly, just a new beginning!

“Trials, temptations, disappointments -- all these are helps instead of hindrances, if one uses them rightly. They not only test the fiber of character but strengthen it. Every conquering temptation represents a new fund of moral energy. Every trial endured and weathered in the right spirit makes a soul nobler and stronger than it was before.”
James Buckham (American Naturalist and Writer)

“The most spiritual human beings, assuming they are the most courageous, also experience by far the most painful tragedies: but it is precisely for this reason that they honor life, because it brings against them its most formidable weapons.”
--Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (German Philosopher, 1844-1900)

“Out of confusion, you invent something permanent - the Absolute, the Brahman or God.”
--Jiddu Krishnamurti (Indian Spiritual Teacher, 1895-1986)

Chronic Fatigue, Epileptic Seizures and Spirituality

Old habits die hard.

I get to hear about a great many medical and psychological problems in people in the public eye. But after 30+ years in medicine, I don't talk about them. That's obvious if someone is my patient: everything is completely confidential. But I also will not talk about medical problems in other people, unless they volunteer information.

Many of us have been very concerned over the physical health of the philosopher Ken WIlber.

In August I posted a brief note after he had taken a nasty tumble. I also pointed out that many of his problems with chronic fatigue syndrome could also be re-framed as "Diseases of Discipleship." Based on that, I made some predictions about other possible symptoms.

Ken has now written an extraordinarily important piece, after he suffered from a series of grand mal epileptic seizures at the beginning of December. I had heard about these problems, but would not post anything until Ken did. Even when I saw some really silly comments about the causes of his problems!

There has been speculation for many years now that many shamans had epilepsy or occasional epileptic seizures. There is also an association between one type of epilepsy and hyper-religiosity.

If you have any interest in the deeper meaning of chronic illness, the spiritual path and karma, I urge you to take a few moments to read Ken's article.

He also mentions a website with more information about the whole Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue complex. I have checked the out, and I agree that this is a most helpful resource.

Get well soon, Ken!

Psilocybin and Mystical Experience

The Psilocybin Molecule

We have discussed mystical experiences a couple of times recently. They are important not only because of what they may teach us about altered states of consciousness, but because they may contain genuine revelations about the nature of reality and they are invariably profoundly meaningful to the person having them.

Earlier this year there was a paper that seemed to come in under some people’s radar, though several heavyweights in the world of psychopharmacology spoke approvingly of the research.

The paper was entitled, “Psilocybin can occasion mystical-type experiences having substantial and sustained personal meaning and spiritual significance.” There are also some superb commentaries on the original paper, all of which are available for free download if you click on the links above.

So what got everyone so excited?

Psilocybin is a psychedelic alkaloid that has been used for religious purposes for centuries. The researchers conducted a double-blind study on the acute and longer-term psychological effects of a high dose of psilocybin. What was particularly important was that the 36 experimental subjects had no previous experience of hallucinogens but who were regularly participating in religious or spiritual activities.

It is also important that the experiments were performed in comfortable, supportive surroundings. The last thing that anyone wanted was for people to have a “Bad trip” and to be left without care and support.

They were given psilocybin and methylphenidate (Ritalin) in separate sessions, the methylphenidate sessions serving as a control and active placebo; the tests were double-blind, with neither the subject nor the administrator knowing which drug was being administered. The degree of mystical experience was measured using a questionnaire on mystical experience developed by Ralph W Hood.

61% of subjects reported a "complete mystical experience" after their psilocybin session, while only 13% reported such an outcome after their experience with methylphenidate. Two months after taking psilocybin, 79% of the participants reported moderately to greatly increased life satisfaction and sense of well-being.

About 36% of participants also had a strong to extreme “experience of fear” or dysphoria (eg, a “bad trip”) at some point during the psilocybin session (which was not reported by any subject during the methylphenidate session), with about one-third of these (13% of the total) reporting that this dysphoria dominated the entire session. These negative effects were reported to be easily managed by the researchers and did not have a lasting negative effect on the subject’s sense of well-being.

The observation that psilocybin reliably elicits a transcendent, mystical state tells us that investigations of these drugs may help us understand molecular alterations in the brain that underlie mystical religious experiences.

But the key point to be made is that finding a biochemical basis for mystical experiences does nothing to belittle them. The biochemical and neurological approaches have nothing to say about the personal meaning and the cultural and social components of the experience. To use Ken Wilber's terminology, this research is only addressing the Upper Right Hand Quadrant.

Important work to be sure, but it would be a mistake to try to reduce mystical experiences to 5HT2A,C receptors alone.

“For what is Mysticism? It is not the attempt to draw near to God, not by rites or ceremonies, but by inward disposition? Is it not merely a hard word for 'The Kingdom of Heaven is within’? Heaven is neither a place nor a time.”
Florence Nightingale (English Pioneer of Nursing Known as the “Lady with the Lamp,” 1820-1910)

“The mystical life is the centre of all that I do and all that I think and all that I write. ...I have always considered myself a voice of what I believe to be a greater renaissance - the revolt of the soul against the intellect.”
-- William Butler Yeats (Irish Poet, Dramatist, Writer and, in 1923, Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, 1865-1939)

The Vagal Path to Compassion

Students of biology or medicine will likely be familiar with one of the largest single nerves in the body, called the vagus or “wandering” nerve. The nerve emerges from the brainstem and is one of the most important contributors to the parasympathetic nervous system, having important effects on the heart, lungs and intestines. The vagus causes the heart to slow, the intestines and kidneys to become more active and the bronchi to constrict. The vagus also has profound effects on metabolism: it has been known for more than a century that stimulating the base of the brain with opiates can cause the release of glucose from the liver, an effect mediated by the vagus. The nerve is also involved in the interaction of the immune system and the brain.

In recent years a technique called vagus nerve stimulation has been found to help some people with intractable epilepsy or treatment resistant depression. Many of the techniques of yogic or Taoist breathing as well as some techniques for inducing altered states of consciousness by eye movements or stimulating specific points on the ears all revolve around vagal stimulation. Some of these techniques have been shown to produce a sustained reduction in blood pressure.

I would like to focus upon the effects of the vagus on the heart. The heart is a physical location of an aspect of our emotional functioning. In Chinese Medicine it is known as the repository of Shen or Spirit. The heart is more than just a pump. It is also an important endocrine gland, and there is some evidence that it is also a sensory organ, with a sophisticated system for receiving and processing information. The neural network within the heart enables it to learn and remember. The heart constantly communicates with the brain, influencing key areas involved in perception, cognition and emotional processing.

You or someone you know may have had a baby. In which case you or they will have had intrauterine cardiac monitoring. Normally the baby’s heart rate varies from minute to minute. Some forty years ago it was discovered that if that variation stopped, it could be a harbinger of doom. Obstetricians knew this, but the rest of medicine forgot about the observation until 1991. Since then there has been enormous interest in the phenomenon of heart rate variability (HRV), because if it is lost, it can be a potent predictor of health problems. HRV reflects the tone in the autonomic nervous system. If this system becomes unbalanced, it can have effects on most of the major organs.

In the Ageless Wisdom the vagus is called our psychic antenna. We all have one, but not all of us have relearned how to use it. Many psychic stressors can produce physical effects via the vagus nerve. When doing acupuncture or energy healing it is very common for the patient to get a slowing of their heart rate and abdominal rumblings, which are sure signs of vagal activity. Psychics often get problems with their intestines while working with people, not from upset, but because they are exercising their skills.

There has been some interesting speculations about the role of the vagus in social behavior. Researchers have found that children with high levels of vagal activity are more resilient, can better handle stress, and get along better with peers than children with lower vagal tone.

There is a project underway at the University of California at Berkeley to see whether the vagus nerve might be the seat of compassion. Dacher Keltner is a professor of psychology and coeditor of Greater Good, a magazine about prosocial behaviors such as compassion and forgiveness. He has been examining the novel hypothesis that the vagus nerve is related to prosocial behavior such as caring for others and connecting with other people.

In his laboratory, Keltner has found that the level of activity in people’s vagus nerve correlates with how warm and friendly they are to other people. Interestingly, it also correlates with how likely they are to report having had a spiritual experience during a six-month follow-up period. Vagal tone is correlated with how much compassion people feel when they are presented with slides showing people in distress, such as starving children or people who are wincing or have a look of suffering on their faces.

Perhaps a key to compassion is to be found in the heart and the face.

Compassion is crucial to our survival. But compassion leavened with wisdom.


“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.”
--The 14th Dalai Llama (a.k.a. Tenzin Gyatso, Tibetan Religious and Political Leader, 1935-)

“Out of compassion I destroy the darkness of their ignorance. From within them I light the lamp of wisdom and dispel all darkness from their lives."
--Bhagavad Gita

Religion and Health

I have written and spoken about the association between spiritual and physical health in my books and CDs, and on this blog.

There is yet more confirmation of this link in a paper that just came across my desk. This was an analysis of the published data on religious activity and health.

This was what they concluded:
“Religious intervention such as intercessory prayer may improve success rates of in vitro fertilization, decrease length of hospital stay and duration of fever in septic patients, increase immune function, improve rheumatoid arthritis, and reduce anxiety. Frequent attendance at religious services likely improves health behaviors. Moreover, prayer may decrease adverse outcomes in patients with cardiac disease.”

Since they were looking only at religious interventions rather than spirituality in general, the investigators did not pick up a lot of research into psychiatric illnesses, pain and cancer. That does not detract in any way from this important publication.

As I’ve said before please don’t ever lose touch with your spirituality. It is essential to your health and well-being.

Learning from a Master

I've collected hundreds of teaching stories from all over the world.

Here is a delightful tale that appears in many forms in Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist and Sufi teachings.

___________________________________________________

Once upon a time, there was a man who wanted to change his life, to understand the nature of things and to learn all there was to know. And so he sold all his worldly possessions and went far away to a distant land to study in a secluded monastery.

After traveling for days and nights, he came to an ancient stone building at the edge of a rocky cliff that was jutting out of a steep mountainside.

He went up to the heavy wooden door and knocked.

The door creaked open and an old man appeared wearing a long robe and holding a wooden staff.

"What do you want?" asked the old Master of the monastery.

"I want to know everything there is to know." Said the man.

"Everything?" said the Master.

"Everything." Said the man.

The old monk looked hard at the man and said, "Come in."

He entered the monastery and the old monk lead him down a narrow stone hallway to a small door on the right side. He entered the room.

Inside the room there was a stone bed, an old wooden table with a huge wax candle, and all around were stacks and stacks of books piled from floor to ceiling, filling the entire room.

The man happily began to read the books. He read from early morning until late into the night. Whenever he was not attending to his tasks at the monastery, he read.

After a few weeks had passed, one day there was a knock on his door, and the old Master with the staff entered his room.

"Well,?" said the Master. "Have you learned everything there is to know?"

"No, Master, I have not." Said the man. At which point, the Master took up his wooden staff and began beating the man about the head and shoulders...and then he left.

The man was stunned...and then he got down to studying even harder. He studied long into the wee small hours of the morning, before his duties began. He barely took time to eat or sleep. He read and read and read.

After a few weeks had passed, again there was a knock on his door, and the old master with the staff entered his room.

"Well,?" said the Master. "Now, have you learned everything there is to know?"

"No, Master, I have not." Said the man. At which point the Master took up his staff and began to beat the man about the head and shoulders...and then he left.

Time went by, and every few weeks, the Master would come to the mans room and ask him the same question. And the man would give the same answer, and receive the same beating about the head and shoulders.

Many wearisome months went by like this, again one day, there was a knock on his door, and the old Master with the staff entered his room.

"Now,” said the Master, "Today, do you know everything there is to know?"

"No" said the man, "I  do not.” At which point, the Master took up his staff and lifted it high in the air... but this time, the man put out his hand and stopped the staff in mid-air.

Suddenly, the Master burst out laughing.

"Master" said the man, "Why are you laughing? I have failed miserably. It is impossible. I will never know everything there is to know." 

"I am laughing " said the Master, "because I am happy for you. For today, you have learned two things, my son.  One, that you will never know everything there is to know. And two, how to stop the pain."

Spirituality and Personal Well-Being

It is no coincidence that most us involved in fashioning the new model of health care are also deeply involved in spirituality. People including Deepak Chopra and Larry Dossey have recognized that health and spiriruality are inextricably linked.

Healing, Meaning and Purpose was written and recorded to support a spiritual journey as part of a comprehensive approach toward wellness.

As I travel the world I am constantly astonished by the ever-increasing interest in spirituality, health and well-being.

A new study has just been published by researchers from the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. Using  data from the 2001 Scottish Social Attitudes Survey, they found that what they called "alternative" spiritual practices could be divided into two groups: concerns with personal well-being and interest in divination. They found something that we have also discovered in the United States. Women, particularly if they are educated, are particularly interested in applying spirituality in their lives to promote their own well-being and the health and wellness of their families. This fits in with other data that have shown that in every culture studied, women are more likely to seek health care, whether they have a skin rash, depression or cancer.

Your spiritual health is essential to the health of your body and your relationships. Please don't ever neglect it.

Some Memorable Quotations

Regular readers will know that I often find that quotations can inspire and educate us and can amplify points.

My own quotations database, lovingly crated over many years, contains almost 30,000 entries. Here are some that I think are wonderful, but for which I can find no reliable attribution. The first was said to have been written by a victim of the Holocaust, but I've not been able to confirm that.

If anyone can help with authorship please do let me know, and I'll edit this entry, giving credit where it's due!

I hope that you find these as inspirational as I have.

I believe in the sun, even when it isn't shining.
I believe in love, even when I cannot feel it.
I believe in God, even when He is silent.

In the end, all I have of ultimate value is my word
And His Word.

I choose them carefully.
Yet my beliefs and mistakes abound
In a universe where justice prevails.

Let me be judged by my choices,
Not by the voices of condemnation
Shouting down errors
They cannot see in themselves.

Reality has rules whose breach does not go unnoticed,
Each violation creates a debt that must be paid.
All of life a striving toward this balance,
Frenzied futility, apology, pretense, denial,
And seeking of forgiveness and mercy.

The universe is just and accountable.
We seek formulas
God has the answers.

Let me love and be loved, even when it goes unnoticed,
And if my feelings and beliefs and vain wonderings
Figure into the solution,
Cast them as adornments
To the ledger of mercy and justice.

Along the journey of life
The longest distance is the foot
Between the heart and the head.
Step forward into the separation of powers,
And travel into eternity.

Chronic Fatigue, RNase Deficiency and Spiritual Development

I was very sorry to hear that Ken Wilber, whose work I admire enormously, has recently been very unwell. While weakened by an underlying chronic illness, he took a nasty fall that has left him pretty badly bruised, and with some possible neurological problems. Fortunately he is already somewhat better.

According to Ken, his underlying illness is a form of chronic fatigue syndrome called or caused by RNase-L Enzyme Dysfunction. People with the problem develop a number of bizarre symptoms apart from fatigue, including muscle weakness, fevers and immune dysfunction. The RNase enzyme is normally activated when a cell has to deal with viruses, some toxins and some bacteria. There is a good introduction here.

There is a growing literature on the subject: investigators from Brussels have recently shown a link between exercise performance and immune dysfunction in some of these patients. It may be that elevated RNase-L enzyme activity may provide us with a biological marker for some cases of chronic fatigue syndrome. Despite this research, I still have many colleagues who continue to say that chronic fatigue syndrome and a probably related condition, Chronic Fatigue and Immune Dysfunction Syndrome, are purely psychological problems.

I am quite sure that they are wrong.

Not least because there are very few illnesses that can be reduced to just psychological or just physical causes. These artificial distinctions do little to help people suffering with genuine problems. (You may be interested to have a look at a brief piece that I wrote about this artificial distinction.)

I do know that the most difficult problems that I have ever faced in clinical practice have been the chronic fatigue syndromes and a possibly related problem: interstitial cystitis. The only things that have helped have been approaches employing the five dimensional approach: physical, psychological, social, subtle and spiritual.

And now I’m going to go out on a limb and do something that normally I do not. I will normally not make even the broadest comments about someone’s diagnosis and treatment unless I’ve seen them myself: there are few things worse than people trying to diagnose at long range and when they only have half the information. But when I see symptoms like these: fatigue and fever, physical weakness and sometimes profound psychological effects, I have to ask whether the biochemical markers are actually telling us something different: that some people with these problems may actually have what used to be known as “diseases of discipleship.” An old-fashioned term used to describe some of the physical challenges and changes that may accompany spiritual evolution. If I am correct, I would predict that Ken - and many other sufferers - should also have profound disturbances of their normal circadian rhythms, some predictable but subtle endocrine disturbances, and otherwise inexplicable sensations roughly corresponding to the channels identified in Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine.

One of the most startling recent discoveries in medicine has been that some of the time-honored laws of healing are changing, because we are ourselves changing very rapidly. In Healing, Meaning and Purpose, I spent a long time talking about some of the reasons for coming to that understanding, and how to use it to improve our health and well-being. I fully expect to spend the remainder of my career showing people how these new laws and principles can help us all, as well as ensuring that appropriate research continues to help us develop these new understandings about health and wellness.

So I’m going to suggest that Ken’s problems might never have happened if he hadn’t been on such a deep spiritual quest, and if he hadn’t been turning up a lot of answers that matter.

Get well Ken!

Technorati tags: Ken Wilber Chronic fatigue syndrome RNase deficiency Chronic Fatigue and Immune Dysfunction Syndrome Interstitial cystitis Spiritual development Circadian rhythm Integrated medicine Integrative medicine Laws of Healing 

Hidden in Plain Sight: The Concentric Key

Physical, psychological and spiritual health are all inextricably linked. We are plagued by ill-defined illnesses whose origin lies not just in our genes, but arise from our spiritual disconnection. And on some level we all know that.

Thirty million Americans describe themselves as spiritual seekers. Why is it that so many are seeking but not finding? The answer to that is more subtle than you may think and also far more satisfying. The information that we need is all lying out there in plain sight. It’s just that most of us has never learned how to access it.

The writer Doris Lessing once observed that we now all have access to thousands of books and other documents that were once hidden or available only to a select few. Some of the most sacred texts are now either available on line or on inexpensive CD-ROMs. Most of these thirty million seekers can probably teach us about prayer, karma, chakras or spirituality. Why do so many people feel spiritually disconnected and why is it that most people are either unwell or not as well as they could be? So very few are able to achieve their full potential because of physical or psychological difficulties? So what’s the problem?

The trouble is that many of the ancient books and manuscripts on which our knowledge is based were written on several levels. Yes, they contain information about our spiritual nature and our subtle anatomy. But that is only level one.

They also contain other levels of knowledge and sophistication: keys and solutions that have until now only been taught to a few.

Textual analysis and interpretation, scriptural exegesis, and numerological research have all been going on for millennia. People were trying to find hidden codes in the ancient manuscripts of India and China two thousand years before the birth of Christ. And for more than four hundred years there have been people poring over the strange quatrains of Nostradamus to find auguries of the future. You may also have heard of modern attempts to find secrets in the Bible using numerical codes. I’m a bit skeptical only because most mathematical analyses have so far failed to confirm the existence of these hidden codes.

But there is another method of penetrating into the mysteries of the Universe, using books and manuscripts handed down over the centuries. It is known as the Concentric Key method and has been in use for centuries. If you do a Google search for those words, you will find no more than a dozen or so entries. The reason is straightforward: the techniques have been handed down in a largely oral tradition. But the time is right for the techniques to be made more widely available.

It has been claimed that some of the works of Shakespeare were written using the code. There is a book – The Secret Doctrine – that is widely regarded as being a bit odd and eccentric. Yet there is a problem with that evaluation. This massive tome, which runs to almost 1500 pages, contains page after page of extraordinary insights. They are not always obvious at first reading, but if you follow a specific set of methods, you can start getting amazing intuitive insights about the nature of reality.

The book was transcribed by a highly controversial person called Helena Blavatsky, who taught a small number of students to use it for enlightenment, and they in turn passed on the secrets. If you just read the book like a textbook or novel, it can look rather silly and disorganized. That is until you realize that there are other levels of meaning that need a lot of brain stretching. But as you understand them you begin gradually to change for the better. It is like the basic proposition of Dan Brown’s novel, the Da Vinci Code: if you know where and how to look there is a treasure trove of information there. But unlike the novel with its rather implausible ideas, studies using the Concentric Key have generated highly reproducible results.

The point of the story is this. There really are diamonds under our feet: insights and revelations hiding in plain sight in books that you may have on your own bookshelf. As a youngster I used to read a great many books, and usually quite quickly. It took time and some very patient teachers to show me that there are some books that repay quiet, slow, contemplative study.

Try and spend a few minutes every day with a spiritual quotation or a paragraph from a favorite spiritual work. If you would like me to post daily quotations, I would be delighted to do so: I have thousands which may be new to you.

And if your intuition draws you toward it, then the next stage is to start working on texts in detail using the Concentric Key technique. I shall post a great deal more about this if you are interested.

Technorati tags: Ageless Wisdom William Shakespeare Secret Doctrine Concentric Key Spirituality Helena Petrovna Blavatsky DaVinci Code Bible Code

Revisiting Resilience

“I don't measure a man's success by how high he climbs, but how high he bounces when he hits bottom.”
--General George S. Patton (American General, 1885-1945)

Resilience is the process of being able to adapt and to thrive in the face of adversity, stress, trauma, tragedy or threats. A resilient person is les likely to succumb to any of these life events and is less likely to develop mental illness. But resilience is more than a passive strength or resistance to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune: it is a dynamic capacity that not only protects us, but enables us to turn adversity into strength and an opportunity for growth.

Despite our extraordinary health care system and a multi-billion dollar antidepressant industry, the rates of depression are increasing throughout the Western world. A recent book has suggested that boredom was unknown before about 1760: the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. All this tells us that something is seriously wrong with our resilience.

“The measure of a man is the way he bears up under misfortune.”
--Plutarch (Greek Biographer and Priest to the Oracle at Delphi, A.D. 46-c.120)

In Healing, Meaning and Purpose, I pointed out some of the incredible changes that have taken place over the last one hundred years, and their impact on health. To try and apply the principles of the past to the problems of the present and future is unlikely to be crowned with success. We need to adapt. Buddhists do not normally eat meat. Except for Tibetan Buddhists, who need to eat some meat in order to survive at the high altitudes of the Himalayas. I have a good friend who created the finest integrated medicine clinic in the world, the Hale Clinic in London. Normally an abstemious vegetarian, when she was embroiled in business meetings, she would often take some meat to remain grounded. I have done the same thing myself for years. I prefer not to eat meat. I have not had a steak in more than thirty years. But if I am to do a lot of traveling and need to work with politicians and business people, a bit of chopped up fish or poultry can be essential.

The changes in our lifestyles over the past century have dramatically reduced the level of physical activity necessary to provide life's basic resources: our effort-based rewards that are intimately involved in the regulation of mood. If you think about it for a moment, if your great-grandparents wanted to eat, there was probably a lot of effort involved. Our brains still contain a huge number of circuits that evolved to play roles in sustaining the kind of continuous effort that would be critical for the acquisition of resources such as food, water and shelter. So what happens when we suddenly on longer need much physical activity to obtain those resources? What happens to those parts of the brain that have millions of years evolving? There will be reduced activation of those brain regions essential for reward, pleasure, salience, motivation, problem-solving, and effective coping strategies. The practical consequence of that is that these systems will not sit there idling: if under-stimulated, since these systems are so heavily involved with our emotions, we would expect to see people becoming depressed. And we know that depression has been increasing throughout the Western world. Of course, many people need to stimulate these regions of the brain artificially, as with drugs, pornography or extreme sports.

Effort-based rewards are an essential component of resilience to life's stressful challenges. Purposeful physical activity is important in the maintenance of mental health. It therefore makes sense to put more emphasis on preventative behavioral and cognitive life strategies, rather than relying solely on psychopharmacological strategies. Our strategy is geared toward protecting people from developing depression, and compensatory behaviors. One of the very interesting new ideas in pharmacology is that antidepressants and antipsychotics may act to enhance resilience at both the cellular level and in the whole person. This is a very different concept from thinking of medicines as chemicals that simply block symptoms.

Our aim is to improve resilience and gradually to increase activation of all those under-used systems of the brain to treat and then to prevent problems. All the things that mother always said were good for you: healthy exercise, meditation, a balanced diet, charity and kindness, and actions aimed at fulfilling your personal and Higher Purpose have already been shown to treat and to protect.

Here are some proven methods for improving resilience:
1.    Learn to be adaptable: the heart of resilience is the ability to take things in your stride and to be able to surf the ocean of change, rather than trying to hold the hold it back.

2.    Be aware of the blockages in your mind or in the subtle systems of your body that are preventing you from bouncing back form adversity

3.    Attitude: avoid seeing a challenge as an insurmountable problem

4.    Accept that change is part of life: you can do little about it, but you can do a great deal about how you react to change

5.    Ensure that you have meaningful goals that are consistent with your core desires and beliefs, and that you are moving toward them

6.    Do all that you can to work on establishing your own Purpose in life. You can create a purpose for your life, but also be aware that there is a Higher Purpose in you life

7.    Take decisive actions: even if the first action may not be the best one. Any action is usually better than denying that problems exist, and hoping that they will evaporate while you are asleep or watching television

8.    Develop and maintain close relationships. Even if you are not a sociable person, relationships are one of the most potent way of protecting yourself from life’s ups and downs

9.    Look for opportunities to learn more about yourself, and how you react to situations. This doesn’t mean becoming an introvert or a rampant narcissist, but it does mean taking a moment each day to review where you are and what you can learn form things that are or have happened in your life. This is a big subject, but there are many good ways to answer the question, “Why is this happening to me  again?” and from preventing habitual problems and routine self-sabotage. (I shall be publishing an eBook and CD about this crucial topic in the very near future)

10.  Work on developing a positive self-image. I have had some harsh things to say about the excesses of the self-esteem movement, but it has now been replaced by something far more valuable: the science of positive psychology. We have a great deal of empirical data on how to improve a person’s happiness and resilience. Again, we can speak about that some more if you are interested.

11.  Maintain hope for the future. We have done research that has shown that one of the best ways of predicting a positive outcome with major mental illness, or of reducing the risk of recurrent substance abuse is to instill hope. Again, there are techniques for doing this, even when the whole world seems to be against you.

12.  Maintain perspective: do not blow things out of proportion, and remember that this too shall pass.

13.  Take care of yourself, physical, emotionally and spiritually. Listen to yourself: what does your body need? What do you need emotionally? What do you need from a relationship? What do you need spiritually?

14.  Are you giving others what they need from you? If you have a nagging sense that you are not giving a child or a spouse that they need and deserve, it can dramatically reduce you resilience.

15.  Rather than just thinking about and worrying over your problems, or problems that may turn up in the future, get into the habit of thinking of yourself not just as an individual who is going through problems, but as a boundless spiritual being who is learning a lesson.

16.  Never forget to think about the legacy that you are going to leave. Not just to your family, but to the world at large. If you can’t think of one, this is a good time to begin to create one. That is an enormously  powerful perspective on the world and on your problems.

“I am an old man and have had many troubles, most of which never happened.”
--Mark Twain (a.k.a. Samuel Langhorne Clemens, American Humorist, Writer and Lecturer, 1835-1910)

Technorati tags: Resilience Life event Life balance Legacy Stress management

Human Evolution

For more than a century, the received wisdom has been that humans finished their physical evolution between one hundred thousand and fifty thousand years ago, and that there have been only minor changes in cognitive abilities over most of that time.

I have always found those assertions to be fundamentally flawed. Our bodies have changed beyond all recognition in the last few hundred years, as I’ve pointed out in my last book and CD series Healing Meaning and Purpose. Even more than that we have changed and are changing mentally. If we were to go back in time ten thousand or even one thousand years, we would find that people were cognitively, emotionally and morally quite different from modern humans. Not simply because of technology and the explosion of knowledge about the external universe, but because there is a dynamic relationship between our development as a species and our creations, with each feeding off the other.

It is only recently that a number of theoreticians, philosophers and psychologists have begun to look at the ways in which we are continuing to develop and what it means for all of us.

The German psychiatrist and philosopher Karl Jaspers first pointed out the great moral leap forward in what he called the Axial Period, between about 700-200B.C.E., during which the foundations of many of the world’s great religions first appeared, probably in response to the prevailing violence and unpleasantness of the time. More recently the Polish-born Swiss philosopher Jean Gebser started developing intriguing models of the transformations of human consciousness. In the United States, the psychologist Clare Graves developed a revolutionary concept of developing levels of development of the personality, that has evolved into Spiral Dynamics. (You may be interested to look at a review that I have just written about an excellent CD program detailing the latest developments in this field.)

And then there is Ken Wilber whose work in this field is remarkable, and whose creation of the Integral Institute promises great things. To these luminaries I now add Dudley Lynch a writer whose work I have only recently discovered.

Dudley recently wrote a very sensitive blog item about the efforts of a person with a mental illness trying to keep himself integrated in a sea of psychic chaos. He was kind enough to publish my brief response, which needs a little more detail.

The reasons for raising these points about continuing human development are these:

1.The manifest physical changes in people over the last few hundred years have enormous – and largely neglected - implications for clinical medicine.

2. It is likely not just peoples’ physical bodies that have changed, but also their subtle systems. I pointed out in my last book and CD series that the chakra system has developed to its current point only within the last few thousand years. This continuing development is also one of the reasons why some therapies that once only worked occasionally are now becoming more stable and predictable, and why some new forms of therapy – like the tapping therapies - are now being discovered.

3. It is because of these profound changes that new forms of therapy are now being developed. Not just using a supplement here, or a breathing exercise there, but precise combinations that help guide the healing of every aspect of an individual and his or her relationships and spiritual connections.

4. Some people who appear to have psychotic illnesses are moving into new developmental stages without having passed through the necessary intermediate stages. I have just read a first person account of an English journalist who could easily have been diagnosed with a manic illness, but was almost certainly undergoing a spiritual emergence.

5. Major emotional, cognitive, moral, conscious and spiritual shifts can be profoundly frightening to many people, and are doubtless one of the reasons for the profound feelings of social dislocation and violent reactions that we are observing throughout the world.

6. It is no surprise that new spiritual pathways are now emerging. Many will doubtless be very helpful to many of the thirty million Americans who count themselves as spiritual seekers, but have not yet found what they are looking for.

7. Taken together, these new understanding about the longitudinal development of people, relationships and whole societies are already having extraordinary effects on our ability to guide them all in more healthy and integrated pathways.

Technorati tags: Human evolution Axial period Ken Wilber Karl Jaspers Alternative medicine Complementary Medicine Integrated Medicine Chakras Subtle energy

Presence and Charisma

I was reading a heart-warming story reported by the BBC of a unique case of a young woman who had a heart transplant at the age of two, and when, ten years later, her adolescent body began to reject the heart, the transplant was removed, and her original heart, which had been resting for ten years, was able to take over. A medical first, but that was not what attracted my attention. Neither was it the lymphoma that she developed several years ago, perhaps because of the original illness that damaged her heart, or perhaps because of the anti-rejection medicines that she has had to take all these years.

It was instead the smiling face of Professor Sir Magdi Yacoub (I just love the pictures of him here.) who did the original operation and who consulted on this new operation. He recently turned 70 and no longer operates himself. I cast my mind back almost 25 years, when I was working at the National Heart Hospital in London and first met him. There are two things that I remember about him. The first is that he was the person who allowed me to show the successful use of acupuncture to treat people who had gone through open-heart surgery, and still had pain in their chests. And the second is the reason for today’s item: Magdi had the most extraordinary personal “Presence.” When he walked in a room, everyone would notice him. Most had no idea who he was, or his extraordinary achievements; they were just drawn to him.

I have met many people who have this “presence” or “aura.” In the Eastern world it is often thought of as another manifestation of “Qi.” Closely related to “presence” is charisma: a compelling attractiveness or charm that can inspire devotion in others. In the ancient world charisma was thought to be a divine power or talent, and the word comes from the Greek word kharis meaning “grace” or “favor.” There is a small scientific literature on this phenomenon of charisma, which often flows from having a strong presence. Some of the research is summarized here.

There are clearly many types of charisma: Political, sports, performance, business, spiritual, literary. scientific and so on. The only two people whom I’ve met who knew Einstein told me that people would usually all stand up when he entered the room. Charisma is more than just a personal characteristic; it can also be conceptualized as the way in which certain groups interact with each other. There is a fascinating book entitled Charisma and Social Structure by Raymond Trevor Bradley, that has a fascinating discussion of the transformative and transcendent power of charisma. It must also not be forgotten that there are those who have used charisma for evil ends: three of the most wicked people of the last century were also possessed of extraordinary personal charisma.

Clearly some people have presence and charisma. The question is whether theses characteristics can also be developed. The answer is yes, they can be. Presence is created by an overall impression constituted of posture, eye contact, stillness, silence, self-confidence, competence and serenity. People with a strong presence are often a little mysterious, in the sense that they tend not to reveal much about themselves or their accomplishments. I have also felt if very strongly in people who have worked to develop the subtle systems of their bodies. One of the most potent examples was a Korean Ki-Master who spoke not a word of English, but whose presence could be felt the moment he entered a packed room. Work on your subtle systems will likely cause you to be more still and serene and to have a better posture and that's a great start.

There are a number of things that you can do to improve your own charisma:

1. Create a strong first impression by developing your presence
2. Develop a good impression when you speak
3. Be a good active empathic listener who connects with other people and asks pertinent questions
4. Be supportive of other people and their aspirations
5. Be persuasive
6. Be resilient and adaptable
7. Expand your vision of what is possible
8. Practice thinking creatively
9. Use humor
10. Be committed and courageous
11. Initiate persistent action
12. Instill hope in the people around you

Technorati tags: Sir Magdi Yacoub, Charisma, presence, empathy, acupuncture

Sexuality and Spirituality

The talk shows and multiple Internet sites have picked up on a story about a controversial website  that is pulling a great many people to a progressive church in Granger, Indiana. Some people have been getting very hot under the collar, and saying that there’s no place for frank advertising and for discussions of sex in a church, or a church-based website.

To be honest, I fail to see what all the fuss is about. It is self- evident that no two people are ever going to agree about everything to do with religion. And just as obvious that there are some clearly different schools of psychological and spiritual development. Some are by their very nature sexually repressive while others, and I am thinking here primarily of Tantric and Taoist traditions, have actively used sex for spiritual enlightenment. But there has also been an important study that has shown that many people who are not following any particular spiritual tradition have spiritual, mystical or transcendent experiences during sex. This is reported in a very fine book by developmental psychologist Jenny Wade.

In the introduction to Jenny’s book, the philosopher Ken Wilber makes an important point, that leads us straight back to the controversy over the website. He asks why so many people laugh at or snigger about sex? And his answer is superficially astonishing, but, I think, quite correct. He says that we laugh at sex because it can kill us.

Many psychologists and philosophers have examined the basis of laughter, and have all, in their different ways come to the conclusion that it has something to do with an event that we find unnervingly significant. I think that is was Freud who pointed out that laughing when someone slips on banana peel causes laughter because it is a reminder that anybody can fall victim to the same thing.

So what does Ken mean by that statement? He means that sex can kill the “everyday you,” your normal personal ego, and sometimes enable people to experience the depths of their own spirituality. And that can be very scary. Clinicians still see a great many people who have developed problems because of conflicts over their own sexuality and their beliefs; In particular their religious beliefs. Yet here is the paradox: sex may not be conducive to religious belief but it can be highly conducive to spiritual experience. Yet Jenny Wade’s study also showed that 80% of the people who had these experiences never told a single person about them. Presumably because they fear that they will be laughed at.

For the people who felt upset about the Church in Indiana, I think that it’s important to realize that sex is not going to go away. Everybody knows that sex sells, and if people are drawn into hearing a balanced message to help them re-establish their moral compass, isn’t that a good thing?

Technorati tags: sexuality, Jenny Wade, spirituality, Ken Wilber

Meditation and the Brain

In the last few years, there have been a number of studies of the brain in people who are practicing different forms of meditation. Andy Newberg at the University of Pennsylvania has looked at cerebral blood flow of meditators, and there has been a long-standing collaboration between Richard Davidson at the University of Wisconsin and the Dalai Lama, who has provided the University with a steady flow of experienced meditators for an array of different types of electrical measurements of their brains. One of the most consistent findings in experienced meditators is that some of these electrical rhythms become synchronized. This was first reported over 20 years ago, but some of those early experiments had some technical problems associated with them. But the new findings seem to be very robust. Meditators also produce an unusual type of high frequency electrical activity known as gamma waves, that oscillate at 40 cycles per second.

This work has some important implications:

1. There are many types of meditation: many are a form of intense concentration, others are a witnessing or watching of thoughts, yet others are a form of profound devotion. So it is no surprise that different forms will produce different effects in the brain.

2. The fact that the brain can be trained to produce certain types of electrical activity is in line with multiple lines of evidence demonstrating that the brain is not the static structure that we used to think it to be: it can learn and develop. We already knew that with motor functions and some cognitive abilities, but now we can extend those findings into the emotions: feelings of love and empathy can be developed, expanded and deepened. The old metaphor that the brain can be exercised like a muscle may not be a metaphor after all, but a biological fact.

3. The fact that there are neurological correlates of meditation or of any emotional or psychological state does not mean that we can reduce the experience to the firing of some neurons or the synchronization of regions of the brain. Some of this research has been misinterpreted to mean that meditative states or mystical insights are no more than the calming of neural activity. It is vital that we also acknowledge the subjective experiences and reports of individuals and recognize that they are as valid descriptors as changes in the brain.

4. Meditation has been shown to have a great many physiological and psychological effects, from lowering blood pressure, to improving the performance of sleep-deprived individuals, reducing age-related cortical thinning and ultimately leading to demonstrable psychological and spiritual development. So the neurological and psychological findings provide a partial explanation for those observations.

The fact that some researchers are cooperating with the Dalai Lama has not sat well with some critics, but I think that it is important for us to remember that we are living in a time when it is essential for us to synthesize different approaches and to find common ground. So I applaud these studies and will continue to report them.

Technorati tags: meditation, Dalai Lama, brain, Neuroscience

Healing and Spirituality

For thousands of years, spiritual teachers and healers were one and the same. The first hospitals in Europe were founded by religious orders. There was always a rather interesting split: folk healers were primarily, though not exclusively female, while the hospitals were male dominated. One of the fruits of the Enlightenment was the separation of healing from faith. The separation of body and spirit was pursued vigorously by medical science as it advanced. Indeed, many in the medical establishment echoed Freud in comparing religion to a neurosis. A well-known figure in British medicine has made no bones about his opposition to the involvement of spirituality in medicine, which he says is the proper business of the church, and has nothing to do with science.

Over the last two decades, things have been changing. A number of physicians and scientists have recognized the importance of re-introducing a spiritual perspective into medicine. But do they have any right to do so? The answer is a definite “Yes”! There has been a gradual build up of scientific evidence that prayer and faith can protect health. A second area of investigation is whether religious or spiritual practice, in particularly intercessory prayer, can affect the health of those being prayed for?

First is the clear observation that faith and prayer can support physical and emotional well-being as well as the health of relationships. One school of thought is that this is all the consequence of an internal healing mechanism. Over 30 years ago Herbert Benson at Harvard first described the “Relaxation response,” a simple method of using techniques derived from Transcendental Meditation for changing a person’s emotional response to stress. He then demonstrated that prayer could also elicit a relaxation response.

In recent years, there has been a global effort to research the connections between faith and health, and I have been particularly impressed by the body of work being generated by the Center for Spirituality, Theology, and Health at Duke University, that has provided incontrovertible evidence that religious people live longer, healthier lives. This seems to be more than just the stress-reducing impact of prayer and meditation.

We also have evidence that thankfulness and an attitude of gratitude may have a lasting impact on your mood and state of health and well-being.

Second is intercessory prayer. We owe an enormous debt of gratitude to the psychiatrist Daniel Benor. Like most people trained in Western medicine, he was very skeptical about spiritual healing until he saw a tough case that failed to respond to conventional medicine but was cured by a spiritual healer. He then started to study spiritual healing and has written the standard textbook on the subject, which runs to FOUR volumes. He once told me that the evidence for spiritual healing is stronger than the evidence for almost any other field of unorthodox medicine and stronger than the evidence for quite a number of practices in orthodox medicine!

The moral of the story? Do not neglect your own spirituality or the spirituality of those around you, and remember that empirical scientific research is showing us yet again, that the power of worship and prayer are far from being neuroses or primitive superstitions.

Technorati tags: spirituality, healing, thankfulness, prayer, Herbert Benson, Daniel Benor

Spirituality and Health

“From its source to the sea, the river represents a hierarchy. We find this same hierarchy in ourselves, from the source, which is our divine Self, all the way to the physical plane. If we wish to drink pure life, we must detach ourselves from the lower regions of the physical, astral and mental planes and seek water in the high mountain peaks within us: in our soul and spirit." Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov (Bulgarian Spiritual Master, 1900-1986)

This is part of a delightful quotation that is well worth your consideration. I received it on January 9th from Prosveta : I signed up with them some time ago to get daily messages. Aïvanhov is one of a number of spiritual teachers who should be better known. If you click on the "Some of My Spiritual Classics" button on the left hand side, it will take you to a list of books that I put together on the Amazon website. I would suggest that you let your intuition do the walking: see if there is something calling to you.

This leads me to one of my central preoccupations, and that is the relationship between spirituality and health. Before I tell you my own views about this relationship, I would also like to tell you about a wonderful resource, and that is the website of the magazine Spirituality and Health. This, together with What is Enlightenment and Magical Blend , are the only three magazines that I always read from cover to cover.

So first of all, what is spirituality? There are dozens of definitions for something that may truly be impossible to define using language designed for describing the external world and for communicating a limited repertoire of our internal states, feelings and opinions. I feel it most simply as the Transpersonal, the One, that underlies the Universe.

Ken Wilber, whose work I admire enormously, has collected the five most common definitions in one of his most outstanding books, Integral Psychology:

1. Spirituality as the highest levels of any of the lines of development through which we can pass

2. Spirituality as the sum total of the highest levels of the development lines

3. That spirituality is a separate line of development.

4. Spirituality is an attitude

5. Spirituality is to do with experiences that can come about from prayer, meditation, devotion, love and so on.

Which definition you prefer, or even if you have a separate one, depends very much on your own temperament, upbringing, understanding and experience.

If you have any interest in these topics, and if you have not already discovered Ken’s work, you will probably enjoy reading him. He puts a lot of his material on the Internet for free and has a terrific website.

The reason for wanting to spend a moment on definitions and some resources, is that apart from personal experience, there is a great deal of convincing research into the relationship between having spiritual and/or religious beliefs and engaging in spiritual and/or religious practices, and in the maintenance of health, prevention of some illnesses and even in the effectiveness of prayer. I am going to analyze and review any new research that I see, as well as invite correspondence about this important topic.

I was a huge skeptic about prayer and healing, but no more. I review articles that have been submitted for publication to a number of major medical journals. The editors say that I am a bit of a “hawk.” If there’s a mistake, I am usually good at finding it. Several years ago I was sent a study of the influence of distant prayer on the recovery of patients in a coronary care unit. I was certain that I would find a flaw in it, but after three days of intense work, I had to conclude that the paper was sound. And it is now one of many. There is really good scientific evidence that prayer works, whether or not the recipient even knows that he or she is being prayed for.

When I had a health problem a few years ago, I recovered in record time. I do not know whether it was the superb medical care, or the fact that I used homeopathy and practiced qigong every day, or the three prayer circles that were involved in my care. My guess is that is was the combination of all of them. And that leads to a final point for this entry: there is overwhelming evidence that new laws of healing have been emerging over the last century, and the key to working with them is to use the leverage and synergy of combinations of treatments: Combinations Are Key

Technorati tags: Ken Wilber, spirituality, prayer, healing

Synchronicity

In my forthcoming book, Sacred Cycles: Regaining Health and Harmony by Mastering the Natural Rhythms of Life, I disucss synchronicity as  a really important aspect of our lives. The notion of synchronicity, or meaningful coincidences, was first proposed by the famous Swiss psychologist Carl Jung and his friend the Nobel Prize-winning physicist, Wolfgang Pauli. Are there really such connections in our lives, or do we live simply at the whim of random chance in a Universe whose every law has been laid bare by the impassive probing of modern science?

There have been countless attempts by mathematicians and physicists to explain away synchronicity, which some skeptics describe as some sort of refuge of the mathematically challenged. Yet other plenty of other scientists have said, “Wait a minute, there really may be something here.” Or is the whole discussion a pointless comparison of objective mathematical apples with subjective metaphysical pears?

I am very interested in hearing your views as well as any personal experiences.

Technorati tags: synchronicity Carl Jung