Prediction: the field of consciousness studies, in the 21st century, will be immensely influenced by smarter and smarter ‘brain machines’, by which I mean devices capable of mapping the functioning of the brain and influencing it.
Presently, what we are seeing are fast advances in the field of mapping.

Here is an example of a study that came out in 2010, conducted by Pr Stephanie Ortigue and her colleagues at Syracuse University, Upstate New York.

The topic of the study: falling in love.

“As a scientist I wanted to bring some rationality to the irrational, and to see if love exists in the brain,” said Pr Ortigue.

A good start! As you may know, “bringing objectivity into the field of subjectivity” has been a life-long thread in my own approach to consciousness studies.

The findings: when gazing at a loved one, participants showed brain activity in the dopaminergic subcortical system. Fascinatingly, euphoria-inducing drugs such as cocaine have the same effect. Which leads Ortigue to outline the similarity, as far as brain activity is concerned, between wanting to be with your beloved, and the pull experienced by a cocaine addict toward the drug.

Besides, just like cocaine, being in love was observed to release ‘feel-good’ chemicals such as dopamine, oxytocin (sometimes called the ‘love hormone’), vasopressin and adrenaline. The brain also showed signs of decreased activity in areas related to emotions such as grief, fear and anxiety.

There you go: falling in love is a drug. We all knew that, didn’t we? It’s hard to think of anything more addictive.

And it’s not called love at first sight for nothing. Says Ortigue: “Interestingly we see that primary visual areas are activated in the first milliseconds of visual processing, then higher-order associative brain areas are activated, and then we see a flow of backward activation from these associative brain areas to the primary visual and emotional brain areas.”

The love at first sight effect was observed to stimulate 12 different parts of the brain. Which asks tantalizing questions: how on Earth did they manage to get their subjects into the MRI machine just when they were falling in love? Falling in love, the study suggests, only takes one fifth of a second.

The study used fMRI, a type of brain imaging scan that shows how much blood flows in different areas of the brain, as a localized measurement of brain activity, in respsonse to stimuli such as the face of your loved one, hearing his or her name, and recalling experiences in his or her company.

Stephanie Ortigue concludes, “These findings confirm love has a scientific basis.”

As part of attempting to give some sort of spiritual education to your
children, an introduction to Greco-Roman myths is an absolute must.

In this posting I’ll offer pointers to a few cinematographic
resources.

The following titles can all be easily and cheaply obtained as DVDs
from Amazon.

It’s well known, kids can have an amazing tolerance when it comes to
watching the same movies over and over again. So buy these DVDs for them.
The more they keep watching, the more the stories will sink in.
Traditional story telling, anyway, follows this principle: re-telling the
same legends again and again.

The Odyssey with Armand Assante

A 1997 Emmy award-winning TV series with Francis Ford Coppola among the
producers. Armand Assante makes a remarkably convincing Odysseus. And
Vanessa Williams is convincing too as Calypso. (Hey, it’s not that easy to
be a goddess!) As for Isabella Rossellini as Athena, well, decide
for yourself. After watching this movie (a number of times) I still haven’t
completely completely made up my mind.

I found this version of the Odyssey to be a feast. Great teaching
material.

Clash of the Titans

By Clash of the Titans I mean the 1981 movie starring Laurence
Olivier, Harry Hamlin and Ursula Andress (and not the 2010 remake, which
you should avoid at any cost).

So, let’s face it, this 1981 movie looks its age. But if your kids can
take it, it’s a great retelling of the legend of Perseus. Alright, I
will accept that the gods look a little… mmh… let’s say
suburban. By the way I’ve never seen a convincing Zeus, in any movie. I
guess it’s no piece’a cake to be the king of the gods.

Anyway, just sit and soak in the story. I totally loved the Kraken (sea
monster), the gory witches and the beautiful Pegasus.

This movie knows how to put you in your kid-character, meaning the part
of you that has superior know-how when it comes to receiving myths and
legends. Despite Laurence Olivier, something of the original myth magic
definitely passes.

Now, two Jason movies:

Jason and the Argonauts (1963) with Todd Armstrong and Nancy
Kovack

This 1963 movie depicts the legend of Jason, the Argonauts, the golden
fleece and the bewitching Medea. Yes, it’s for children, so you won’t be
shown how Medea cut her brother into pieces and later killed her own
children. Still, Nancy Kovack seemed to me convincing enough as Medea, and
Todd Armstrong does the job as super Jason.

The special effects were staggering at the time. Your kids will have to
be patient watching them now. It’s worth it. The movie definitely makes it
when it comes to sharing the legend.

Jason and the Argonauts (2000) with Jason London

Watching the same story from two different perspectives is a great way
of entering it in more depth.

This 2000 TV series starring Jason London as Jason and Jolene
Blalock as Medea is very watchable. And since it runs for over 4 hours, it’ll keep
the kids busy.

It’s good learning material. I’ve seen it keep children entertained and
excited. It definitely does the job.

Purposely not included in this list…

Note that I didn’t include the 2004 movie Troy in this list. As
much as I admire Brad Pitt, the truth is, he was an abysmal choice for
Achilles – far too small and too likable for the Homeric killing
machine that was Achilles. This movie just doesn’t pass the space of
The Iliad. It’s bad teaching material. It puts the wrong images in
people’s minds.

As I mentioned earlier, the 2010 Clash of the Titans is an
abomination. Don’t waste your time. Stay away from the pollution.

The 1969 Medea of Paolo Pasolini, with Maria Callas as Medea, is
definitely not for children. It is an intellectual’s variation on
Euripides’ play, rather than legend retelling. I’m not convinced it
conveys much of the spaces of ancient Greece.

That’s  it for today. I’ll make another posting on this topic
soon.

Do post a comment if you have cinematic recommendations to make about
ancient Greek legends.

Today I’d like to draw your attention to a documentary presently available through youtube: Chimpcam, in which researchers teach a group of chimpanzees how to use a camera.

Why chimps? In models of subtle bodies, when discussing the astral body and the Ego, it’s always fascinating to reflect on the boundaries between the human and animal realms. Esotericists have often used these boundaries to draw the line between the spheres of the Ego and of the astral body — the general idea being that animals have an astral body, while humans have both an astral body and an Ego (or principle of immortality).

But so much can be found in animal behavior that challenges the common-sense definition of what is specifically human!

In the Chimpcam program you’ll see chimpanzees not only playing computer games and demonstrating a short-term memory that’s superior to that of humans (all of which, after all, are of the domain of the astral body), but also showing signs of what the researchers call ‘a sense of self’.

What do scientists mean when they say that chimpanzees demonstrate a sense of self? They refer to the fact that, when looking at themselves into a mirror, chimpanzees know exactly that they are looking at themselves, and not just at any chimpanzee. For example, they use mirrors to explore parts of their body they cannot normally observe, such as their eyes, or their teeth (very nicely illustrated in the documentary).

Watch them carefully. It asks puzzling questions as to what ‘me/non-me’ means for them.

The documentary is a little slow-paced and, arguably, it ends where you’d expect it to begin. But the material is well worth pondering on for all those interested in consciousness studies.

You can find the documentary here.

Summer news in California: in the last weeks, Oakland (the city that borders Berkeley on the east, only a few minutes from the center where the Clairvision School runs weekly classes) has approved an ordinance that invites companies to compete for four licenses to operate large-scale marijuana growing operations. These will supply medical marijuana dispensaries — medical marijuana has been legal in California since 1996.

Last year, the sales in Oakland’s dispensaries totaled about $28 million. Oakland, unlike many areas of the Bay, hasn’t managed to capitalize on the High Tech Boom, and therefore intends to seize its chance and become the Silicon Valley of pot. Large-scale growing operations mean serious tax revenue.

Funnily enough, the staunchest opponents to the new ordinance are the small growers, who make their living out of supplying Oakland’s dispensaries. Clearly, big business is about to take over.

But the real action will come in November, with Proposition 19 — which won’t only apply to Oakland but to the whole of California and goes a long, long way beyond the present arrangement of tolerating ‘medical marijuana’. Basically, what proposition 19 does is remove state penalties for personal use, and propose a statute where “no person 18 years or older [some have 21] shall be punished criminally or denied any right or privilege because of his planting, cultivating, harvesting, drying, processing, otherwise preparing, transporting, possessing or using marijuana.”

The end of the prohibition. Period.

A study by the independent state Legislative Analyst’s Office has concluded that Proposition 19 is likely to raise tax revenue in the hundreds of millions. Not to speak of all the money saved by no longer sending pot offenders to jail — every inmate costs the state somewhere between $40,000 and $100,000 per year.

If proposition 19 is passed, the price of pot will fall. A joint is likely to cost about $1.50. That’s including a tax of $50 per ounce, amounting to about half the cost of the joint.

Would this have an impact on people’s consciousness? You bet, it would. Smoking cigarettes definitely has an impact, so don’t expect marijuana to have less of an impact.

But then again, would you like to see your kids going to jail for smoking a cigarette?

Thorny issue. Scientific studies have now well established that marijuana is significantly less toxic than tobacco. But then again, should the tobacco companies enter the game, they could modify marijuana to make it more addictive — and also more toxic — as they have done with tobacco. To find out more you may want to have a look at this Reuter article on the economic impact that could result from Proposition 19.

The ballot will take place in a little more than 3 months.

What’s the biggest object in the sky that is visible to the naked eye (apart from the Sun, of course)?

Venus? Jupiter?

Absolutely not. At the moment there’s much, much bigger. It is…

…the International Space Station.

Because the ISS is in such a low orbit, it is huge — up to a magnitude of -2.5. And it circles the earth in less than two hours. Meaning that it’s often visible in the early morning (dawn) and evening (dusk) times.

A bit of is background needed, here. Unlike stars, the ISS doesn’t glow on its own. It is visible to us because it is lit by the Sun. This is why you cannot see satellites in the middle of the night, by the way — there is no light of the Sun to make them visible to us. And during the day, of course, you don’t see satellites either because the sky is too bright.
So for you to be able to see the ISS, or any artificial satellite, the Sun must be below the horizon, and it must not be night — as in the hours before sunrise and the hours before sunset.

C’mon! Make it a personal project to see this huge, huge light in the sky, that would have drawn awe, amazement and wonder from the ancients.

Here are two ways of finding out times when the International Space Station will be passing over your head. (Don’t worry about finding the direction in the sky. The ISS is so big that you can’t possibly miss it.)

Method number 1: if you have an Android phone or an iPhone, download an app that will calculate the times for you. That saves you from having to determine your longitude and latitude — the phone will do this for you.

Method number 2: use this website:: heavens-above.com. You will have to configure it for your own location — going to the ‘Configuration’ link in the front page.
How can you find out your longitude and latitude? For this you can use Clairvision Virtual Astrologer.
Here is another trick that’s worth knowing: using Google Maps (with or without satellite view), if you right-click on a point and select, ‘What’s there?’, Google Maps will answer with your longitude and latitude formatted in degrees-decimal, just like heavens-above expect you to enter them. Just cut and paste into the configuration boxes of heavens-above.com.

Happy viewing!

I must say it does something to you to watch such a big, luminous object in the sky.

If you are elderly, caring for a spouse who has dementia significantly increases your chances of developing dementia yourself. So concludes a study published in the May 2010 edition of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, authored by Peter Rabins, a psychiatrist at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore.

The observation of course asks all sorts of questions in terms of subtle bodies. Is some sort of ‘etheric resonance’ at play?

The study was conducted on 1221 couples in their seventies in Utah. 95% of them had been married for 25 years or more. The effect was more marked in men (12 times more likely to get dementia) than in women (3.75 more likely).

I wouldn’t make too much out of this study, but it’s certainly worth remembering it when theorizing about the energetic effects of having been married to (and therefore having lived close to) someone for many years.

See more in Wired and here.

A major scientific breakthrough has just taken place. It could become one of the milestones of modern science: an artificial life form – the creation of the first living cell.
It’s always fascinating to reflect on the order in which discoveries are made. Human beings conquered electricity, nuclear energy, went to the moon and achieved many other technological wonders – but could not yet create one single living cell.

Has this happened?
Self-funded geneticist entrepreneur Craig Venter and his team, at the J. Craig Venter Institute in Maryland, claim to have created the first synthetic cell (at the estimated cost of 40 million dollars).
This of course asks tantalizing questions about subtle bodies. What sort of etheric and astral are attached to that cell? And, if there are any, where did they come from?
Impossible to answer without seeing the ‘thing’.
One important caveat: what the Venter team did was to place DNA material in a pre-existing cell. So it’s not really a fully synthetic cell that was created here – not life from scratch. Still, the claim is that the cell grows and reproduces itself.
We probably don’t want to make too much out of this as long as it has not been repeated at least a few times. But if confirmed, it’s the first step in a brave new world where all sorts of wonders and monsters could come out of the lab.
For more details, start with this nicely written article from the Guardian, then type “Craig Venter artificial life form” in Google news – the flow of comments is swelling by the day.

With the Bilski case, the US supreme court is about to make a historical decision that will not only shape the future of the computer industry, but could also have a major influence on the dissemination of information flows in the 21st century.

It’s about a ‘business method’, and whether it can be patented or not.

If the supreme court decides that it cannot be patented, then myriads of existing software patents may well find themselves invalidated by the same occasion. If, on the other hand, the supreme court decides in favor of Bilski, then there could be sledgehammer-type repercussions against free and open source software, and more generally against many collaborative projects aimed at sharing knowledge rather than monetizing it.

Because so much is hanging in the balance, you may want to spend half an hour watching a free online movie that explains the case and discusses the dangers of issuing patents for mathematically-based laws of nature. The movie, ‘Patent Absurdity’, can be downloaded here

The temple of Artemis, near Ephesus (in Asia Minor, now modern Turkey), was considered one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Already famous in the 7th century BC, it was destroyed on July 21, 356 BCE in an act of arson by a madman. That very same night, Alexander the Great was born — leading Plutarch to conclude that Artemis was too busy with Alexander’s delivery to look after her own temple.

The temple was later on rebuilt, and destroyed again.

Often mentioned by ancient writers, this temple made a very big impression on all those who saw it.

It happens that the temple of Artemis is featured in a great documentary (6 parts, i.e. about 1 hour long) available on youtube: “Cleopatra: A portrait of a killer”.

The plot: Cleopatra’s sister, Arsinoe, after nearly defeating Julius Caesar, was exiled and later on murdered in Ephesus.
You’ll find some great visuals in this meticulously documented historical account.

Get it by following these links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAAtJzXvX1c
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=1andonlyhistorylover#g/u

Note: you don’t have to watch the video online. You can also download it (preferably as .mp4 files) through a website such as:

http://keepvid.com/

A new study about the effect of sleep on learning processes is making headlines. In the study, conducted by Dr Robert Stickgold of Harvard Medical School, subjects who slept after memorizing a 3D computerized maze did better at navigating the maze several hours later than those who did not nap.

The caveat, though, is that REM (Rapid Eye Movement, indicative of the dream state) must take place during the nap for the effect to be observed.

This very much parallels a principle of our Night Practice technique: it is when you engage the phase of spontaneous images that the technique yields its real benefits. Otherwise… you’re just thinking with your eyes closed — not quite performing the technique.

A similar study, conducted in 2009, came from the San Diego School of Medicine (University of California). The author of the study, Sara Mednick, PhD, commented, “We found that – for creative problems that you’ve already been working on – the passage of time is enough to find solutions. However, for new problems, only REM sleep enhances creativity.”

To find out more about…

the Harvard Medical School study:

The Harvard Crimson,  article by Victoria J. Benjamin, published Tue, Apr 27, 2010
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2010/4/27/maze-wamsley-group-navigating/

Mednick’s study:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090608182421.htm

Mednick’s findings were published in the June 8th online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).