Montjuic - December 2nd 2008

ride

b_aby__b_orn

H_ope

Zeitgeist The Movement

1.4 planets to support our lifestyle? where's 0.4??

“If all humans would live like we in Europe, we would need almost 3 planets; and would all humans live like the ones in the USA, we would even need five planets.“
Mathis Wackernagel, Founder of the Global Footprint Network

23rd September marked an unfortunate milestone: from that day humanity has used all the resources nature will generate this year, according to Global Footprint Network data. Earth Overshoot Day marks the day when humanity begins living beyond its ecological means. Beyond that day, we move into the ecological equivalent of deficit spending, utilizing resources at a rate faster than what the planet can regenerate in a calendar year.
Globally, we now require the equivalent of 1.4 planets to support our lifestyles. But of course, we only have one Earth. The result is that our supply of natural resources -- like trees and fish -- continues to shrink, while our waste, primarily carbon dioxide, accumulates.
Humanity first went into overshoot in 1986; before that time the global community consumed resources and produced carbon dioxide at a rate consistent with what the planet could produce and reabsorb. By 1996, however, humanity was using 15 percent more resources in a year than the planet could supply, with Earth Overshoot Day falling in November. This year, more than two decades since we first went into overshoot, because we are now demanding resources at a rate of 40 percent faster than the planet can produce them, Earth Overshoot Day has moved forward to 23rd September.

A September, we shouldn’t only remember because of the breakdown of the global financial system. You will however not read anything about this in our newsletter. But as always, inspiring information about us and Gaia, also with view to a reduced human ecological footprint, and to a fairer world economic order.

Cordially from autumnal Basel
Dieter A. Hagenbach

How Thinking Can Change the Brain

Sharon Begley, Wall Street Journal-
Dalai Lama helps scientists show the power of the mind to sculpt our gray matter.

Although science and religion are often in conflict, the Dalai Lama takes a different approach. Every year or so the head of Tibetan Buddhism invites a group of scientists to his home in Dharamsala, in Northern India, to discuss their work and how Buddhism might contribute to it.

In 2004 the subject was neuroplasticity, the ability of the brain to change its structure and function in response to experience. The following are vignettes adapted from "Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain," which describes this emerging area of science:

The Dalai Lama, who had watched a brain operation during a visit to an American medical school over a decade earlier, asked the surgeons a startling question: Can the mind shape brain matter?

Over the years, he said, neuroscientists had explained to him that mental experiences reflect chemical and electrical changes in the brain. When electrical impulses zip through our visual cortex, for instance, we see; when neurochemicals course through the limbic system we feel.

But something had always bothered him about this explanation, the Dalai Lama said. Could it work the other way around? That is, in addition to the brain giving rise to thoughts and hopes and beliefs and emotions that add up to this thing we call the mind, maybe the mind also acts back on the brain to cause physical changes in the very matter that created it. If so, then pure thought would change the brain's activity, its circuits or even its structure.

One brain surgeon hardly paused. Physical states give rise to mental states, he asserted; "downward" causation from the mental to the physical is not possible. The Dalai Lama let the matter drop. This wasn't the first time a man of science had dismissed the possibility that the mind can change the brain. But "I thought then and still think that there is yet no scientific basis for such a categorical claim," he later explained. "I am interested in the extent to which the mind itself, and specific subtle thoughts, may have an influence upon the brain."

The Dalai Lama had put his finger on an emerging revolution in brain research. In the last decade of the 20th century, neuroscientists overthrew the dogma that the adult brain can't change. To the contrary, its structure and activity can morph in response to experience, an ability called neuroplasticity. The discovery has led to promising new treatments for children with dyslexia and for stroke patients, among others.

But the brain changes that were discovered in the first rounds of the neuroplasticity revolution reflected input from the outside world. For instance, certain synthesized speech can alter the auditory cortex of dyslexic kids in a way that lets their brains hear previously garbled syllables; intensely practiced movements can alter the motor cortex of stroke patients and allow them to move once paralyzed arms or legs.

The kind of change the Dalai Lama asked about was different. It would come from inside. Something as intangible and insubstantial as a thought would rewire the brain. To the mandarins of neuroscience, the very idea seemed as likely as the wings of a butterfly leaving a dent on an armored tank.

Neuroscientist Helen Mayberg had not endeared herself to the pharmaceutical industry by discovering, in 2002, that inert pills -- placebos -- work the same way on the brains of depressed people as antidepressants do. Activity in the frontal cortex, the seat of higher thought, increased; activity in limbic regions, which specialize in emotions, fell. She figured that cognitive-behavioral therapy, in which patients learn to think about their thoughts differently, would act by the same mechanism.

At the University of Toronto, Dr. Mayberg, Zindel Segal and their colleagues first used brain imaging to measure activity in the brains of depressed adults. Some of these volunteers then received paroxetine (the generic name of the antidepressant Paxil), while others underwent 15 to 20 sessions of cognitive-behavior therapy, learning not to catastrophize. That is, they were taught to break their habit of interpreting every little setback as a calamity, as when they conclude from a lousy date that no one will ever love them.

All the patients' depression lifted, regardless of whether their brains were infused with a powerful drug or with a different way of thinking. Yet the only "drugs" that the cognitive-therapy group received were their own thoughts.

The scientists scanned their patients' brains again, expecting that the changes would be the same no matter which treatment they received, as Dr. Mayberg had found in her placebo study. But no. "We were totally dead wrong," she says. Cognitive-behavior therapy muted overactivity in the frontal cortex, the seat of reasoning, logic, analysis and higher thought. The antidepressant raised activity there. Cognitive-behavior therapy raised activity in the limbic system, the brain's emotion center. The drug lowered activity there.

With cognitive therapy, says Dr. Mayberg, the brain is rewired "to adopt different thinking circuits."

Such discoveries of how the mind can change the brain have a spooky quality that makes you want to cue the "Twilight Zone" theme, but they rest on a solid foundation of animal studies. Attention, for instance, seems like one of those ephemeral things that comes and goes in the mind but has no real physical presence. Yet attention can alter the layout of the brain as powerfully as a sculptor's knife can alter a slab of stone.

That was shown dramatically in an experiment with monkeys in 1993. Scientists at the University of California, San Francisco, rigged up a device that tapped monkeys' fingers 100 minutes a day every day. As this bizarre dance was playing on their fingers, the monkeys heard sounds through headphones. Some of the monkeys were taught: Ignore the sounds and pay attention to what you feel on your fingers, because when you tell us it changes we'll reward you with a sip of juice. Other monkeys were taught: Pay attention to the sound, and if you indicate when it changes you'll get juice.

After six weeks, the scientists compared the monkeys' brains. Usually, when a spot on the skin receives unusual amounts of stimulation, the amount of cortex that processes touch expands. That was what the scientists found in the monkeys that paid attention to the taps: The somatosensory region that processes information from the fingers doubled or tripled. But when the monkeys paid attention to the sounds, there was no such expansion. Instead, the region of their auditory cortex that processes the frequency they heard increased.

Through attention, UCSF's Michael Merzenich and a colleague wrote, "We choose and sculpt how our ever-changing minds will work, we choose who we will be the next moment in a very real sense, and these choices are left embossed in physical form on our material selves."

The discovery that neuroplasticity cannot occur without attention has important implications. If a skill becomes so routine you can do it on autopilot, practicing it will no longer change the brain. And if you take up mental exercises to keep your brain young, they will not be as effective if you become able to do them without paying much attention.

Since the 1990s, the Dalai Lama had been lending monks and lamas to neuroscientists for studies of how meditation alters activity in the brain. The idea was not to document brain changes during meditation but to see whether such mental training produces enduring changes in the brain.

All the Buddhist "adepts" -- experienced meditators -- who lent their brains to science had practiced meditation for at least 10,000 hours. One by one, they made their way to the basement lab of Richard Davidson at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He and his colleagues wired them up like latter-day Medusas, a tangle of wires snaking from their scalps to the lectroencephalograph that would record their brain waves.

Eight Buddhist adepts and 10 volunteers who had had a crash course in meditation engaged in the form of meditation called nonreferential compassion. In this state, the meditator focuses on unlimited compassion and loving kindness toward all living beings.

As the volunteers began meditating, one kind of brain wave grew exceptionally strong: gamma waves. These, scientists believe, are a signature of neuronal activity that knits together far-flung circuits -- consciousness, in a sense. Gamma waves appear when the brain brings together different features of an object, such as look, feel, sound and other attributes that lead the brain to its aha moment of, yup, that's an armadillo.

Some of the novices "showed a slight but significant increase in the gamma signal," Prof. Davidson explained to the Dalai Lama. But at the moment the monks switched on compassion meditation, the gamma signal began rising and kept rising. On its own, that is hardly astounding: Everything the mind does has a physical correlate, so the gamma waves (much more intense than in the novice meditators) might just have been the mark of compassion meditation.

Except for one thing. In between meditations, the gamma signal in the monks never died down. Even when they were not meditating, their brains were different from the novices' brains, marked by waves associated with perception, problem solving and consciousness. Moreover, the more hours of meditation training a monk had had, the stronger and more enduring the gamma signal.

It was something Prof. Davidson had been seeking since he trekked into the hills above Dharamsala to study lamas and monks: evidence that mental training can create an enduring brain trait.

Prof. Davidson then used fMRI imaging to detect which regions of the monks' and novices' brains became active during compassion meditation. The brains of all the subjects showed activity in regions that monitor one's emotions, plan movements, and generate positive feelings such as happiness. Regions that keep track of what is self and what is other became quieter, as if during compassion meditation the subjects opened their minds and hearts to others.

More interesting were the differences between the monks and the novices. The monks had much greater activation in brain regions called the right insula and caudate, a network that underlies empathy and maternal love. They also had stronger connections from the frontal regions to the emotion regions, which is the pathway by which higher thought can control emotions.

In each case, monks with the most hours of meditation showed the most dramatic brain changes. That was a strong hint that mental training makes it easier for the brain to turn on circuits that underlie compassion and empathy.

"This positive state is a skill that can be trained," Prof. Davidson says. "Our findings clearly indicate that meditation can change the function of the brain in an enduring way."

plant world

archaic revival

all is one

Time to know the truth

skull

Natural History Museum - LAX

Real Live Dinosaur

The true spirit of the Olympics

Let the games begin!

Mushroom that speaks

"The mushroom is presently metabolizing within our bodies; this has keyed in on the tryptamine template in the living mushroom and it has been sensitized for the condensation of the harmine-psilocybin-DNA molecule. When the ayahuasca is ingested the harmine analog will start to metabolize within the body. The ESR of the presensitized psilocybin circuit will immediately cancel the ESR of the harmine and cause it to bond superconductively to the DNA-RNA memory bank and drive unit will condense into the waiting, charged psilocybin circuit in the mushroom. We will see this condensation, as it will appear in the mushroom at te same instant that the bond is completed in a higher dimension."
pp107 - True Hallucinations, Terence & Dennis McKenna

Psychedelic Medicine News

Psychedelic Medicine News is a website promoting the healthy use of Psychedelics. With up-to-date news from reliable sources, great links and direct downloads.

Definitely worth checking it out! :D

psychointegrator.com
Psychedelic Medicine News

read more | digg story

the mysterious

"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery -- even if mixed with fear -- that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds: it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity. In this sense, and only this sense, I am a deeply religious man... I am satisfied with the mystery of life's eternity and with a knowledge, a sense, of the marvelous structure of existence -- as well as the humble attempt to understand even a tiny portion of the Reason that manifests itself in nature."
- Albert Einstein

2012 Enigma by David Wilcock

Really interesting material from David.

Deep perspective.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4951448613711060908

Positive Media Coverage

It was not long ago that Project Sunspot begun. At first, like most things, it was just an idea and I didn't really know where it was going to go. But the idea was excellent! Supporting the furthering of psychedelic research and education feels like the right thing to do.

Maybe you like psychedelics, maybe you haven't tried. Either way we can no longer close our eyes to our own consciousness and ignore that we can (and should) expand our way of thinking. The idea of sunspot is to get educated, to get research. To understand and look for meaning to what is the cause of this effects we feel when under the influence, and that we want to hold on to it so much. Signing the petition is a way of saying yes, I agree with understanding psychedelics.

I am very happy to publish this link:

http://www.realitysandwich.com/anno_psychedelia

It is our first media coverage, and it's so positive.

It's no longer a question of "if", but "when" are psychedelics going to be legalized.
be in peace

Heart Sutra Chanting

twirl_art

sound from the earth

Listen here

resonating ideas in the heart of China

2008 Sichuan Earthquake

Ibogaine treatments in Barcelona

For any of you who will be at the IHRA Barcelona conference or in Barcelona on May 17, the following information may be of value.

Barcelona represents a unique opportunity for the expansion of ibogaine therapy and to provide information on ibogaine and the medical procedures in which it is used to treat addiction and substance dependence as well as, the user self-help movement providing ibogaine therapy on a user-to-user basis. Ibogaine presentations will be made on Monday, May 12th, 2008, during the International Harm Reduction's (IHRA) 19th Conference and on Saturday, May 17th at RAI (Recursos d'Animació Intercultural). The May 12th presentations will be made during a special session sponsored by the International Network of People who Use Drugs (INPUD). The Saturday, May 17th ibogaine presentations are to afford the opportunity for addiction treatment specialists as well as, the drug using population who are not able to attend the IHRA conference to participate in the discussion of this experimental medication for those who cannot afford the costs of the harm reduction conference or for others who have conflicts on that date.

You can obtain information and view the agendas for both presentation sessions at <http://www.ibogaine.org/barcelona.html> or <http://www.ibogaine.desk.nl/barcelona.html>

From Albert

"Alienation from nature and the loss of the experience of being part of the living creation is the greatest tragedy of our materialistic era. It is the causative reason for ecological devastation and climate change.

Therefore I attribute absolute highest importance to consciousness change. I regard psychedelics as catalyzers for this. They are tools which are guiding our perception toward other deeper areas of our human existence, so that we again become aware of our spiritual essence. Psychedelic experiences in a safe setting can help our consciousness open up to this sensation of connection and of being one with nature.

LSD and related substances are not drugs in the usual sense, but are part of the sacred substances, which have been used for thousand of years in ritual settings. The classic psychedelics like LSD, Psilocybin and Mescaline are characterized by the fact that they are neither toxic nor addictive. It is my great concern to separate psychedelics from the ongoing debates about drugs, and to highlight the tremendous potential inherent to these substances for self-awareness, as an adjunct in therapy, and for fundamental research into the human mind.

It is my wish that a modern Eleusis will emerge, in which seeking humans can learn to have transcendent experiences with sacred substances in a safe setting. I am convinced that these soul-opening, mind-revealing substances will find their appropriate place in our society and our culture."

Dr. Albert Hofmann
Thursday, 19th April 2007

Albert Hofmann dies at 102 years old

Albert Hofmann, who died on Tuesday aged 102, synthesised lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) in 1938 and became the first person in the world to experience a full-blown acid trip.

The Enlightenment Machine

a fun perspective

los-4

los-4
Originally uploaded by paternostro

Aniversário da Mari, 25 aninhos.

te amo mor

beijos

Psychedelic Mushrooms to be banned in the Netherlands

Dutch Minister of Public Health Ab Klink presented this proposal last Friday (April 25th); according to him 'consumption of mushrooms may lead to life threatening incidents'.

read more | digg story

real_olympics

March 10th 2008, marks the 49th anniversary of the Tibetan National Uprising when tens of thousands of Tibetans rose up against China's illegal invasion and occupation of their country. Despite China's best attempts to destroy the Tibetan spirit, Tibetan resistance has continued for nearly half a century inside Tibet and in exile communities worldwide.

This year, with all eyes focused on the Olympics in China, Tibetans and supporters worldwide are protesting the Chinese government's use of the Olympics as a political tool to legitimize its illegal occupation of Tibet.

Join the Global Uprising for Tibet! Help us draw attention to the worsening human rights situation inside Tibet. Help us use the Olympics spotlight to shame and embarrass the Chinese government and show them that until Tibet is free, China will never be never be accepted as a leader on the world stage.

TIBET WILL BE FREE

BOYCOT CHINESE OLYMPICS

FREE CASEY HARDISON

Having come of age in the touring music scene of the Pacific and Mountain West of the United States, Casey attended entheogen-related conferences, wrote articles for MAPS and contributed to Erowid. In 2002, shortly after moving to England, Casey chose to fulfill his ten-year spiritual journey to make LSD.

After a 4-month investigation precipitated by a US DEA informant, however, Casey was arrested in February 2004 on the suspicion that he was manufacturing the psychedelic or entheogenic-type drugs LSD, DMT and 2C-B in Britain.

Casey acted as his own lawyer during his trial and, instead of arguing he did not commit the alleged acts, he argued that, as long as he harmed no one, he had the human right to engage in his chosen entheogenic praxis. In essence, Casey challenged the drug laws as a discriminatory affront to Cognitive Liberty, therapeutic choice and free religion.

+info freecasey.org

You can hear Casey's recorded message played in the closing ceremony of the World Psychedelic Forum 2008 in Basel, Switzerland - Listen NOW!

quantum doc [part I]

I'm amazed at how Amit Goswami's ideas resonate with my own. The truth is the way he is developing this theories is, to my extent, destiny. All great thinkers come to be great thinkers based on other people's thoughts. It is only when we integrate that we can produce something creative, unique.

He considers himself an integralist. Am I therefore an Integralist as well?? The truth is I do like the word integrate, and the fact that he has integrated all medicines amazes me. He not only created the quantum doctor, but he integrated all fields of medicine - both conservative and alternative.

Below is a little something of what I'm reading right now - hope who ever gets to read this understands the complexity and importance of what he is up to

-----------------------------------------
There is nothing but God - "quotes on A. Goswami"

The new paradigm of science is based on the primacy of consciousness as the ground of all being. It integrates physics with psychology and spirituality. Conventional science is a science of objects; it develops theories of objects in terms of other more fundamental objects. So it fails for consciousness because consciousness consists of both subjects and objects. The new paradigm treats subjects and objects, spirit and matter, on the same footing.

The old science is about only the conditioned behavior of the world; the new paradigm also can handle the world's creative aspects. Hence it allows us to explore new avenues for our creativity. Surely, everyone is interested in creativity.

Is there an application of the new paradigm that is so striking that it will grab public imagination? There is. The new way of doing science not only may answer some knotty problems of biologic evolution. I am realizing that it may also be able to integrate the disparate ideas of conventional and alternative medicine.

so long, farewell.

tibetan uprising

0:09

So there I was on the limit of my capacity to record anything. I was staring at that place and I wanted to hold on to that moment, hold on to all that people, to that monkey speaking through the microphone. I was looking for peace. Whom do you serve?
I didn't understand it all, the english was flawless, my comprehension on my limit. The poem stopped making sense and began to confort my mind. to physically please my brain. I could then understand their true passion, their true motive. sacredness. respect. curiosity with a true heart. i prayed.
I then realized that moment I was holding on was vanishing through my fingers. i could not hold on to that any longer. i had idealized, realized and finally understood. this is where i belong, inside. that's where my revolution is. no matter where i go, where i am, who i am.

love

two sides of the same mind

How about yes?

yes, I feel it.
yes, I know it,
yes, I've done it.
Yes, yes, yes. 
But how about no?
no, not really.
no, I don't.
no, I haven't.
No, no, no.

GrofING AROUND

At the present time I consider LSD to be a powerful unspecific amplifier or catalyst of biochemical and physiological processes in the brain... The capacity of LSD and some other psychedelic drugs to exteriorize otherwise invisible phenomena and processes and make them the subject of scientific investigation gives these substances a unique potential as diagnostic instruments and research tools for the exploration of the human mind. It does not seem inappropriate and exaggerated to compare their significance for psychiatry and psychology to that of the microscope for medicine or the telescope for astronomy.
Stanislav Grof
Realms of the Human Unconscious (pp. 32-3)

Tungus [Siberia]

Before a man becomes a shaman he is sick for a long time. His understanding becomes confused. The shamanic ancestors of his clan come, hack him to bits, tear him apart, cut his flesh in pieces, drink his blood. They cut off his head and throw it in the oven, in which various iron appurtenances of his costume are made red-hot and then forged.

This cutting up is carried out somewhere in the upper world by the shaman ancestors. He alone receives the gift of shamanhod who has shaman acestors in his clan, who pass it on from generation to generation; and only when these have cut up his body and examined his bones can he begin shamanize.

the light

so I've quit my job. Yes. Well, it was not a sudden thing. I have been quite sure about this. The point is that seeing processes of my life that I've started and concluded under my new paradigm brings me confidence.

Clear-thinking.

The ability to plan the actions of your life, dealing with difficulties, facing your fears, being a true warrior on the hard moments. Giving love. Making laugh. Creating a good working environment. Building friendships. Gaining trust. Being polite. Working hard. Getting paid. It is all in the package.

For many occasions all I wanted was to stay there, forgotten, working so I would get the money to pay the bills. For many others all I wanted was to get done with all the work. Just so I'd have an objective to achieve. For many many others I would get my mind away from what I was doing and think and re-think my life. For a few times I was enjoying what I was doing. For even fewer times I was having fun. A couple of times I laughed for real. enO meti I kdsies. It was hard, very hard, but I did it. I went there and did it myself. My way. And it went just fine.

Now the phase is a shot for an upgrade. I'm aiming a bit higher this time and let's see where the fish takes me. Got a keep the lasagna flying. ;D

the archaic revival

once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.


'Sailing to Byzantium'
William Butler Yeats