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Saturday, July 05, 2014

"ISIS" the Start of World War III? David Icke interview/tangent~



David Icke predicts this "Isis" group vs. the Zionists will be the beginning of WWIII...interesting. Watch it, cross-reference it, read books & articles, and pray.


Wednesday, July 02, 2014

"The Science of Tripping & It's Impact on Creativity" [Great Article Lifted from the 'Spirit Science & Metaphysics' Site!]


THE SCIENCE OF TRIPPING AND ITS IMPACT ON CREATIVITY

Proponents of psychedelic drugs have long insisted substances like LSD and psilocybin–the compound found in magic mushrooms–expand the mind, provide novel insights, and boost creativity.  But only recently has scientific evidence started to bolster these claims.  A new study in the journal, Human Brain Mapping and ongoing research into LSD at the Imperial College London, has begun to demonstrate that mind-altering substances increase communication between various regions in the brain, leading to mental states that are highly imaginative, sensorily vibrant, and emotionally intense. 

But scientists aren’t merely confirming that hallucinogens are fun to do. If the effects of these drugs could be harnessed, then theoretically, they could be used to deliberately fuel creative output.  “It’s possible that we could learn what sort of mode the brain enters when one has creative insights on the drug and then maybe we could learn about how that could be harnessed without it,” says Robin Carhart-Harris, a post-doctoral researcher at the Centre for Neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London and a co-author of the study.

The Research Trials

For the current paper, the researchers injected 15 participants with psilocybin and then put them in an MRI scanner. Subjects were over 21, non-claustrophobic, and had at least one previous experience with psychedelics (to ensure that nobody freaked out when they started hallucinating).

This intravenous method is “like a rocket launch,” Carhart-Harris explains. Subjects rapidly go “from normal consciousness to deep in the psychedelic state.  They might have visual hallucinations, see fractal geometry, maybe animals and landscapes.”  It’s akin to what we experience when we dream. And most interesting, subjects experience what researchers call a “dissolution of the self.”

“The brain networks that control our personalities and our ongoing stream of consciousness appear to be particularly affected by psychedelic drugs,” says Carhart-Harris.  “This activity, which happens in the higher-level regions of the cortex, and is highly organized, collapses.  On psychedelics, the sense of self, created by all of our previous experiences, doesn’t seem quite so solid.  There’s a sense of uncertainty but also novelty.  People start experiencing the world with almost child-like eyes.”

In other words, we lose ourselves.

“When an incredible piece of art is made, there is something entirely selfless in the act,” Carhart-Harris says.  “There’s a spontaneity, an absence of self-consciousness.”  Of course, making great art requires focus and persistence in addition to imagination.  If you simply “take the breaks off” the mind, Carhart-Harris acknowledges, the mind will end up creating “a lot of junk.”


A VERY LONG RABBIT HOLE

It took the scientists a full three years after conducting the psilocybin study to analyze the data they collected.  Which means understanding how these drugs work is a slow process.  An ongoing study of LSD has subjects taking the Torrance creativity test (thinking up alternate uses for mundane objects) while on the drug or a placebo.  Not surprisingly, preliminary results show that people find more creative uses for cardboard boxes when high.
But it’s difficult to get a true baseline reading of creativity, or to even see how the brain functions in the midst of an imaginative act.  “You lose a lot of the real-life validity of the creative phenomenon when you try and isolate it and examine it experimentally,” Carhart-Harris says. Just ask a painter to produce a world-class work of art from inside an MRI machine.  Flashes of inspiration are unpredictable by nature; we can’t just make artists sit around in a lab until the light bulb goes off. 
So there won’t be any creativity drugs on the market any time soon.  But if you’re eager to see how psilocybin or LSD could affect your own creative output, you should give Carhart-Harris a call.  (His team relies on word of mouth to attract subjects.)  When you crawl deep inside the rabbit hole–or, for that matter, the MRI machine–you never know what you’ll find.








Sunday, May 25, 2014

"A Great, Big 'Ole, Pile of Books Was Dumped in My Backyard Recently"

"Mary Magdalene: The True Life Story of the Legendary Figure"
   -by Lynn Picknett

"The Divine Commodity: Discovering Faith Beyond Consumer Christianity"
   -by Skye Jethani

"Cyril of Alexandria"
   -by N. Russell

"Don't Know Much About the Bible: Everything You Need to Know About the Good Book but Never Learned"
   -by K.C. Davis

"Barlaam and Josaphat: A Christian Tale of the Buddha"
   -by Gui de Cambrai

"Inside the Gas Chambers: Eight Months in the Sonderkommando of Auschwitz"
   -by Shlomo Venezia

"Black Holes in the Dead Sea Scrolls: The Conspiracy, The History, The Meaning, The Truth"
   -by Robert Feather

"An Introduction to the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt"
   -by K.A. Bard

"Invoking the Scribes of Ancient Egypt: The Initiatory Path of Spiritual Journaling"
   -by Normndi Ellis & Gloria Taylor Brown

"Sense and Stigma in the Gospels: Depictions of Sensory-Disabled Characters"
   -by L.J. Lawrence

"Ancient Egypt 39,000 BCE: The History, Technology, & Philosophy of Civilization X"
   -by Edward Malkowski

"The Sign: The Shroud of Turin & the Birth of Christianity"
   -by Thomas de Wesselow

"The How-to Book of Catholic Devotions" (I won this in an email contest from The Coming Home organization, part of the "Coming Home Network" t.v. show on EWTN channel!  I love winning things!
This book is a bit rudimentary, but I can brush up on some things I may have forgotten. Then I'm gonna' give it to my friend Shaun who just became fully Catholic this Easter!♥)
   -by Mike Aquilina & Regis J. Flaherty

"Atlantis Beneath the Ice: The Fate of the Lost Continent"
   -by Rand & Rose Flem-Ath

"The Three Ages of Atlantis: The Great Floods that Destroyed Civilization"
   -by Diego Marin, Ph.D., Ivan Minella, & Erik Schievenin

"The Pyramids: The Mystery, Culture, and Science of Egypt's Great Monuments"
   -by Miroslav Verner

"A Pelican in the Wilderness: Hermits, Solitaries, and Recluses"
   -by Isabel Colgate

"Maximus the Confessor"
   -by A. Louth

"Hungry Souls: Supernatural Visits, Messages, and Warnings from Purgatory"
   -by Gerard J.M. Van Den Aardweg

"The Cross & the Crescent: The Dramatic Story of the Earliest Encounters Between Christians and Muslims"
   -by Richard Fletcher

"Voyages of the Pyramid Builders: The True Origins of the Pyramids from Lost Egypt to Ancient America"
   -by Robert M. Schoch, Ph.D.

"The Parapsychology Revolution: A Concise Anthology of Paranormal & Psychical Research"
   -by Robert M. Schoch, Ph.D., and Logan Yonavjak

"The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution"
   -by G. Cochran & Henry Harpending

"The Book of God: The Bible as a Novel"  (This is awesome!!)
   -by Walter Wangerin, Jr.

"Is the Holocaust Unique? Perspectives on Comparable Genocide"
   -ed. by Alan S. Rosenbaum

"The Sacred Universe: Earth, Spirituality, and Religion in the 20th Century"
   -by T. Berry

"The Age of the Sages: The Axial Age and the Near East"
   -by M.W. Muesse

"Eichmann's Jews: The Jewish Administration of Holocaust Vienna, 1938 - 1945"
   -by Doron Rabinovici

"The First New Testament: Marcion's Scriptural Canon"
   -by Jason D. BeDuhn

"How to Read the Bible Book by Book"
   -by G.D. Fee & D. Stuart

"How to Read the Bible for All It's Worth"
  -by G.D. Fee & D. Stuart

"Born Divine: The Births of Jesus & Other Sons of God"
   -by R.J. Miller

"The Miracle Detective"
   -by R. Sullivan

"A Guide to the Buddhas"
   -by Vessantara

"A Guide to the Bodhisattvas"
   -by Vessantara

"Return to the Golden Age: Ancient History and the Key to Our Collective Future"
   -by Edward Malkowski

"Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, & Politics in the Book of Revelation"
   -by Elaine Pagels

"Muslims & Jews in America: Commonalities, Contentions, and Complexities"
   -ed. by Reza Aslan & Aaron J. Hahn Tapper

"From Coffin to Heaven: A Psychological Study of Christian Conversion in Drug Rehabilitation"
   -by Ho-yee Ng

"The Occult in Mediaeval Europe"
   -ed. by P.G. Maxwell-Stuart


"The Medieval Christian Philosophers"
   -by R. Cross


"The Bosnian Church Thirteenth to the Fifteenth Century"
   -by John Fine


"Cleopatra: Last Queen of Egypt"
   -by J. Tyldesley

"In Due Season: A Catholic Life"
   -by Paul Wilkes


"Legends of the Fire Spirits: Jinn & Genies from Arabia to Zanzibar"
   -by R. Lebling


"Tutankhamen: The Search for an Egyptian King"
   -by Joyce Tyldesley


"The Orthodox Church: An Introduction to its History, Doctrine, & Spiritual Culture"
   -by John Anthony McGuckin


"The Rig Veda"
   -trans. by W. Doniger  (Penguin Classics--I love the huge selection of these books!)


"Desert Fathers and Mothers: Early Christian Wisdom Sayings"
   -sayings, prayers, advise, etc from the worlds first Christians





"Glory to God for All Things" [Excellent Eastern Orthodox Blog!!] ♥♥♥

"Glory to God for All Things Blog" [link]