Shamanism and the Transformative Power of Drum Meditation

Cleansing with Sage

“Shamanism is not a religion. It’s a method. And when this method is practiced with humility, reverence and self-discipline, the shaman’s path can become a way of life.” – Hank Wesselman

The wise make one lifetime into many; the many make one lifetime into less. Shamans are intent upon making their one life into many by cultivating a relationship and a dialogue with the multiple sub-selves within their own psyche as well as with the multiple sub-selves within the psyche of others.

They intuit the animal-god dilemma inherent within the human condition, and seek to absolve theexistential crisis that inevitably occurs because of it. Shamans are not wise because they know everything without questioning, but because they question everything they think they know.

Drumming may also be used as a form of therapy for releasing and moving through strong emotions such as grief and pain.

One of the many tools shamans use to question what they think they know is the sacred drum. Drumming is perhaps the oldest form of active meditation known to humanity. It can help with a myriad of issues, such as: retrieving lost aspects of soul, releasing unhealthy entities, solving conflicts within the unconscious, transforming the negative energy of past traumas into positive energy, helping people finally feel suppressed emotions, and healing unhealthy patterns and habits.

Drum meditation can also be used as a method for rewilding. In her book Sacred Land, Sacred Sex: Rapture of the Deep Dolores Chapelle reveals how the drum can have a direct, potent effect on human neurophysiology. She concludes that trance drumming “links us directly with our real human nature in all its deep aspects and therefore can link us once again to the land.”

By surrendering ourselves to the shape-shifting rhythm of the drum, we allow ourselves to move into the ethereal realm of deep imagination, where healing transformation is free to take place; where we are free to communicate with various archetypes and travel through limitless worlds.

As Bill Plotkin writes, “Trance drumming pushes us over the edge and we fall into other worlds.” The rhythm of the drum opens the door to our depths, seducing the angels and demons of our unconscious and resurrecting the forgotten gods and goddesses of our inner world. It’s a mythic journey that bridges inner and outer, the seen and unseen, the conscious and unconscious.

The sacred rhythm of the drum recalibrates our soul, knocking it back into balance with the cosmic frequency, while retuning what may have previously been falsely tuned. By riding the wave of the drum, we perceive actualities and imagine possibilities that we might otherwise have missed.

Sacred drum

Drum meditation facilitates healthy ego-deconstruction through its powerful resonance with the depths, thereby allowing the soul to speak. A healthy drum meditation is like a crowbar leveraging the dark depths of our soul. What we see during our drum meditation journey has the potential to reveal clues to the riddle of our lives as well as give us greater clarity regarding the purpose and meaning of our lives.

But it can also upset us and cause us grief and immense pain. It can break our hearts open, which opens us up that much more to the power and poignancy of the sacred. Either way we are soul-shifted by the vastness and enchantment of our journey through the inner-outer nature of the soul-world dynamic. Our souls become more robust, more adaptable to the impermanence of the world.

Through the art of rhythmic drumming, shamans take the concept of “having a vision” to the next level by revealing exactly the sort of dialectical boundary-crossing logic that is needed to overcome the one-dimensionality of modern day deconstructionism. They employ the drum as a vehicle that facilitates journeys into the mysteries of cosmos and psyche, where deep imagery and soulful connection with our deeper self can take place.

When boundary-crossing with the vibratory rhythm of the drum, the visionary experience tends to blend the senses synesthetically, and we take on the power of existential freedom. Imagine Neo caught in between The Matrix and The Desert of the Real. What’s revealed is the truth of reality: there is no separation; everything is connected; all is a synergy of both cosmos and psyche. As James Hillman maintains, “We live in a world that is neither ‘inner’ nor ‘outer.’”

With enough practice, the power of drum meditation can help us to develop what Ivan Illich called “tools of conviviality” by giving us the courage to interpret and live our own destiny as opposed to merely going through the motions of living the destiny handed down to us. We can become human catalysts and proactive agents of change. We can become New-oracles with the courage to tell the old-oracles that they have failed.

Image Source:
Sage

Drumming

Sacred Drum

Originally Posted on http://fractalenlightenment.com/

Psychedelics Don't Harm Mental Health; They Improve It

Psychedelics Don't Harm Mental Health; They Improve It 

Psychedelics like psilocybin mushrooms and LSD not only don't cause mental health problems, they may actually improve mental health, say Norwegian researchers. 

Those are the findings by neuroscience researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, who reported that LSD, psilocybin and mescaline not only don't cause long-term mental health problems, but that in many cases the use of psychedelics is associated with a lower rate of mental health problems. 

The study pulled data from the US National Survey on Drug Use and Health, observing 130,152 randomly-selected respondents from the adult population of the US. 13.4% of that group (21,967 individuals) reported lifetime use of psychedelics. 

Comparing this data to standardized screening measures for mental health, the researchers found that neither lifetime psychedelic use nor use of LSD in the past year were independent risk factors for mental health problems—and that, in fact, psychedelic users had lower rates of mental health issues. Teri S. Krebs and Pål-Ørjan Johansen, the Norwegian researchers, additionally noted that “psychedelic plants have been used for celebratory, religious or healing purposes for thousands of years” and that: “Psychedelics often elicit deeply personally and spiritually meaningful experiences and sustained beneficial effects… LSD and psilocybin are consistently ranked in expert assessments as causing less harm to both individual users and society than alcohol, tobacco, and most other common recreational drugs. 

Given that millions of doses of psychedelics have been consumed every year for over 40 years, well-documented case reports of long-term mental health problems following use of these substances are rare.” 

The study also found absolutely no evidence that “flashbacks” afflict users of psychedelics, slaying another commonly-held superstition around psychedelic use. 

The Norwegian study brings good news for the over 30 million Americans who have used psychedelics (compared to 100 million who have used marijuana). 

And while the media has been buzzing about Dr. Sanjay Gupta's revelation that he "changed his mind on weed" it may be time for psychedelics to get a similar PR rehabilitation. 

While psychedelics still conjure images of 1960s-era bad trips like Art Linkletter's daughter jumping out of a window on acid (an overinflated myth, says Snopes), they have undergone significant research and slow progress towards clinical acceptance in the past decades.

Researchers still labor under the immensely negative Timothy Leary-era image of psychedelics, but are steadily chipping away at the cultural deadlock created by what many see as reckless abuse of psychedelics during the 1960s and 70s. Standing in stark contrast to the negatives of that time, however, are the immense clinical benefits that psychedelics are consistently being shown to offer. 

Another recent study at the University of South Florida, for instance, found that psilocybin mushrooms erase conditioned fear response in mice, suggesting they could potentially be used to cure PTSD—and that psilocybin can even prompt growth of brain cells. Multiple studies are currently being conducted (at New York University's medical school and Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center) into using psychedelics to alleviate fear in patients with late-stage terminal illness—easing the experience of death and allowing people to end their lives in states of acceptance instead of terror. LSD and psilocybin even hold promise for treating cluster headaches a condition so debilitating and painful that it often leads sufferers to consider suicide. While marijuana enjoys its time in the spotlight, it may be time for its more potent—and potentially even more beneficial—siblings to join the party. 

Credits: Collective Evolution, Ultra Culture, Altering Perspectives

Eight Signs You May Be Experiencing a Spiritual Awakening

By: Gary ‘Z’ McGee, Fractal Enlightenment, Guest Contributor

“Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.” ~ Miles Kington

1. You’re more in touch with your spiritual foundations through transformative meditation:

You realize, as Jung noted, that “the experience of the Self is always a defeat for the Ego.” And through the seven primary chakras you are becoming one with the cosmos, receptive to stimuli to which, in the time before, you were insensate.

You’ve felt the powerful kundalini energy rising up from your roots, passing through the sacred waters of the sacral, basking in the fire of the solar plexus, breathing in the vital breath of the heart, absorbing the ethereal voice of the throat, pouring through the dissolution of the Third Eye, and spilling up and out like a mighty fountainhead into the greater cosmos.

2. You are beginning to want more freedom and less stuff:

Your heart is not heavy with materialistic burden. You understand that ownership-based love can never be true love. You realize like Osho said, “Love is not about possession. Love is about appreciation.” And although there are some people in the world who are so poor all they have is money, you continue to love without expecting anything in return. You have frequent, overwhelming episodes of appreciation for the abundance the natural world has to offer. Like Gandhi, you live simply so that others may simply live.

3. You realize that the door to your prison cell is wide open (and always has been):

Rumi, “Why do you stay in prison when the door is wide open?”

You have a growing propensity toward breaking mental paradigms, stretching comfort zones and thinking outside of the current box. You have a tendency to think and act spontaneously rather than from fears based on past experiences, and you are constantly attempting to recondition any and all preconditions.

You enjoy each moment, relishing, in carpe-diem-ecstasy, your bountiful freedom. It was Rumi who asked, “Why do you stay in prison when the door is wide open?”

4. The world is a playground, and you are on recess:

You don’t take yourself too seriously. You realize that, though hard work is necessary, sincere play is paramount. You understand that play is the only way that the highest intelligence of humankind can unfold. Your sense of humor has become your safety net. You understand that sincerity is primary and should always trump seriousness. Like Nietzsche wrote, “The struggle of maturity is to recover the seriousness of a child at play.”

5. You have acquired the counterintuitive practice of relishing in your mistakes:

We all make mistakes. Sometimes the mistakes we make are huge, like overeating, or putting all our eggs in one basket. Sometimes the mistakes we make are small, like eating too many beans, or making a wrong turn at Albuquerque.

But you appreciate the strange flukes and foibles that knock you off course or lead you astray. These can be setbacks or stepping stones. It’s up to you which. But you have discovered the capacity to use them as stepping stones.

6. You have an overwhelming feeling of being connected with others and nature:

You realize, as Aldo Leopold did, that “The land is not a commodity that belongs to us; it’s a community to which we belong.” You are becoming more aware of your connection to the community and cosmos. Yourego-centric tendencies are fast dissolving into eco-centric magnanimity.

You realize, as Darryl Anka surmised, that, “Everything is energy and that’s all there is to it. Match the frequency of the reality you want and you cannot help but get that reality. It can be no other way. This is not philosophy. This is physics.”

7. You understand that the journey is indeed the thing:

You’ve discovered that most of your pleasure comes not from your achievement of a goal, though there is some pleasure that comes from that, but from the process of achieving that goal. It’s not just that you are on a journey; it’s that you are the journey.

You are not simply crossing the bridge from animal to Over-man (Nietzsche’s Übermensch), you are the “bridge” itself. Indeed, you understand – from balls to bones, ovaries to marrow – that the glue that binds finitude with infinity is the human torn between being both an animal and a god.

8. You’d rather be slapped with the truth than kissed with a lie:

You embrace the pain that comes from knowledge and laugh at the bliss born out of ignorance. You accept that pain is a side effect of doing what you love, knowing that pain is merely the hard center of love that must be embraced, softened and transformed into wisdom.

You have an appreciation for truth that trumps any amount of pain or suffering that’s necessary to achieve it. Like the Dread Pirate Roberts says to the princess in the Princess Bride, “Life is pain, princess. Anybody who tells you otherwise is selling something.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Z, a former Navy Intelligence Specialist turned philosopher, is the author of Birthday Suit of God and The Looking Glass Man. His works are inspired by the great philosophers of the ages and his wide awake view of the modern world.  His recent works can be seen here and also found at Z’s Hub.

This was originally featured on: FractalEnlightenment

Image Credits: MojVideo

Serotonin Facilitates Deep States of Spirituality

Serotonin a chemical present in your brain, that can be released through high states of meditation or through the use of psychedelic drugs, has been proved to make you susceptible to spiritual experiences.

A team of Swedish researchers had found that the presence of a receptor that regulates general serotonin activity in the brain correlates with people’s capacity for transcendence, the ability to apprehend phenomena that cannot be explained objectively.

Because of the mystical experiences users of psychedelic drugs like LSD have had scientists have long suspected that serotonin influences spirituality. Although now they have proof from brain scans linking the capacity for spirituality with a major biological element.

Reporting in the American Journal of Psychiatry, the researchers see the evidence as contradicting the common belief that religious behavior is determined strictly by environmental and cultural factors. What it means is those with a higher concentration of serotonin receptors will therefore most likely show a stronger inclination towards experiences where they see God or they experience higher connections with themselves and the universe.

Those whose brain scans showed the most receptor activity proved on personality tests to have the strongest proclivity to spiritual acceptance. Apart from the elevate consciousness experiences, Serotonin is in charge of moderating mood, metabolism, and sexuality.

You may be interested in the Mouse Party to see how drugs like LSD work on the human brain in a nice flash application.

Source

Thought Power: How to Manifest Your Reality

Everything is energy and that’s all there is to it. Match the frequency of the reality you want and you cannot help but get that reality. It can be no other way. This is not philosophy. This is physics. -Bashar



WE ARE ALWAYS MANIFESTING.

Each thought we have creates an energy flow within and around our physical being. This energy attracts its likeness. So if you’re thinking, “I suck,” then your energy kinda, well, sucks—and you attract sucky experiences.

The opposite experience occurs when you think high-level thoughts like, “I rock!” When you think and feel, “I rock,” you exude an energy of confidence and in turn attract great experiences into your life. Each thought you have informs your energy, and your energy manifests into your experiences . . .

Your thoughts and energy create your reality.
MANIFESTING MISHAPS

Manifestation has become a buzzword lately. Though it’s totally awesome that the Law of Attraction is now trendy, it also can be a bit misleading for folks who are unwilling to do the heavy lifting. If you truly want to use your energetic power to manifest greatness, you must clear all that blocks you from believing in your greatness.

A Course in Miracles teaches that on some level, you’ve asked for everything that happens in your life. Your intentions create your reality. There’s no need to beat yourself up: simply recognizing how your low-level thoughts negatively affect your life is the first powerful step toward changing your experiences. Begin your manifesting process by getting honest about how your low-level thoughts, energy, and feelings of disbelief block you from receiving what you desire. Once you get clear about the blocks, you can begin to clean them up to clear space for positive manifestations to occur.

Many people, when trying to manifest, focus too much on the outside form rather than the internal condition. What’s important is our internal experience: whether we choose to experience love or fear. When we commit to our internal experience of love, we begin to attract more love. Many people approach manifestation from a place of “How can I get something to feel better?” Instead, the focus should be: “How can I feel better and therefore be an energetic match for attracting more greatness into my life?” The emphasis must be placed on healing the internal condition, not getting a hot new car or boyfriend.
THE FIVE PRINCIPLES FOR MANIFESTING YOUR DESIRES

Below are my five key principles for genuine manifesting. When practicing these steps, make sure to stay committed to the goal of feeling good first and attracting stuff second. Continue to remind yourself that when you feel good you energetically attract goodness into your life. When your primary function is to be happy, then whatever comes to you is irrelevant. Happiness is your true manifestation.
PRINCIPLE ONE: CLEAR SPACE

Before you begin the manifestation process you must take the necessary time to release all your disbelief in your power to be happy. One of the best ways to clear the blocks of disbelief is to pray for release. Begin a daily prayer practice of asking the Universe to set you free from all the limiting beliefs that block you from believing in your greatness. Stay open for signs from the Universe and show up for the assignments that are brought to you. Universal assignments come in many forms. Maybe you’re guided to the relationship that brings up all your shit so that you have to finally heal your fear. Or maybe you lose your job so that you can learn the lessons of self-reliance and strengthen your self-love. Trust that these assignments, however tough at times, are incredible opportunities for you to clean your energy and clear space to call in what you desire.

Your job in this step is to pray for guidance to clear all that blocks you from believing in your greatness. Then allow the Universe to help guide you to whatever assignments you need to aid in the healing process. Show up for the assignments and trust that the more you clean your thoughts and energy, the more positive experiences you will attract into your life.
PRINCIPLE TWO: GET CLEAR

Clarity is king when it comes to manifesting your desires. You must have clear intentions for what you want to call in—otherwise you can manifest a lot of what you don’t want. Focus on what you desire and then make a list of all that goes along with it. If you’re getting clear about the job you want, make a list of all the things about the job that make you happy: the office, the people, the salary, etc. Be unapologetic about what you want. This list helps to clarify your intentions and access a vibrant mental picture of what you desire.

The most important part of this step is to clarify how you want to feel. When you get clear on how you want to feel, you can begin to access that feeling. That feeling is what makes the manifestation come into form. You can write a thousand lists and make a million vision boards, but if you don’t clearly feel what you want to experience, it will never truly manifest into form.
PRINCIPLE THREE: THINK IT, FEEL IT, BELIEVE IT!

Now let’s put these steps together. Take your clear intention and spend time every day sitting in the feeling of what it is that you desire. You might access the feeling through meditation and visioning exercises. Or call on the feeling when you’re in nature or doing a form of exercise you love. Let the thought inform the feeling and let the feeling take over your energy. The more you feel the feeling of what you desire, the more you believe it is on the way. From a metaphysical perspective, if you believe it then it is already here. So make time for contemplating, thinking, feeling, and believing.
PRINCIPLE FOUR: CHILL!

The next step is crucial to the manifestation process. In order to truly manifest your desires into form, you gotta chill out! A Course in Miracles teaches: “Those who are certain of the outcome can afford to wait and wait without anxiety.” Take this message with you and allow your faithfulness to guide you into the belief that what you desire is on the way. Also trust that the Universe has a much better plan than you do. Though you are clear about what you want, you cannot control the timing or the form in which it comes. Stay calm, relax, and trust that the Universe has your back!
PRINCIPLE FIVE: KNOW THE UNIVERSE HAS YOUR BACK

When you’re in the know you’re deliberate about what you want. When you’re in the know you no longer vibrate energy of fear or disbelief. You just know. As your disbelief wilts away, wanting is replaced by knowing. Getting into the know happens naturally. When you diligently practice steps one through four, you will clean house, get clear, and feel happier. This process is healing and powerful, and it leads to a deep inner knowing that you are right where you need to be. Accepting your greatness in this moment, right now, is what manifests more greatness. Being in the know helps you accept that you already are living in your desired manifestation. When you feel it, you live it—regardless of what is happening on the outside. In time, the Universe catches up with your energy and your desires come into form. This process of allowing the manifestation to follow your internal faith is the true process of co-creation.
STAY COMMITTED TO HAPPINESS

Stay committed to this five-step process and trust that you’re exactly where you need to be. Is your main desire to feel good? Trust you will be given everything you need to create that feeling. Know that feeling good is the true manifestation—and everything else is the icing on the already delicious cake!
POWER OF OUR SUBCONSCIOUS – SHOCKING MIND POWER TECHNIQUES TO MANIFEST REALITY – GREGG BRADEN

Power of the Subconscious Mind seen through the Power of Emotions! This is working 100% of the time inside of our brains to create the world around us. Believe it or not, but the Power of Thoughts are important, but for the REAL quantum physics magic to occur you need to put the power of emotions connected to that specific thought of focus to create the attraction into your life. Your Subconscious Mind Power Techniques Programming Explained is essential in order to create the life that you want.

10 Ways to Raise Your Vibrations

All your thoughts and feelings are energy, and energy is vibration. Learn to Raise those Vibrations and watch your life change dramatically.

1. Find something beautiful and appreciate it. Beauty is all around us, from the morning dew to the evening stars and everything in between. Most go through life not noticing all the beautiful things that are around them, and yes it’s every where, so take the time to notice them, and appreciate them when you see it. Whether it’s the scent of a flower or the way rain ripples in puddles of water, appreciate the beauty life has to offer.

2. Make a list of all that you are grateful for. Making a gratitude list shifts your vibrations from focusing on what you do not have to what is already abundant in your life. There is more to be grateful for than you could possibly imagine. You can start with “I’m Alive!” and expand from there. Gratitude is the Attitude.

3. Meditate. Sit in a comfortable position, close your eyes and breath in and out. Too often we rush through our days with a scattered brain leaving us in a state of anxiety and stress, Meditation helps to calm your spirit down and put you in a peaceful state of mind. 10 Minuets of meditation a day can change your life forever.

4. Do something for someone else. Giving to someone else shifts your thinking from “I don’t have enough, to I have more than enough to give to others.” Abundance is a high vibration.

5. Stop complaining and gossiping. Complaining and Gossip puts you in a very low vibration. Ask yourself “Are the things you are talking about bringing you more of what you want?” if not then, Stop complaining, and start finding ways to rejoice.

6. Move. Exercise. Get active. Vibration requires movement, the more you move the better your vibrations move. So Get Active! Dance! The happier you feel, the more you will draw happy experiences to yourself because you are operating at a different frequency.

7. Realize that you have more control over your life than you thought. You are not a victim to circumstance, past, family upbringing, trauma, or anything else. You can change your life in an instant. Just realize this. In many wisdom traditions this is called “total responsibility.” No one is responsible for how you feel right now but you. It isn’t a curse. It’s a blessing because it gives you your power back.

8. Breathe. Just sit and try to make your breath longer, fuller, and more relaxed. It has a direct affect on your nervous system and helps to calm you down. A calm vibration is a high vibration.

9. Do Something You’re Afraid Of Fear holds us back from being in a state of love and happiness, and facing those fears opens you up to a greater world of possibilities. Fear of Heights? Go skydiving. Scared of public speaking, say a poem at an open mic. You’ll begin to realize your fear was worse then the actual problem, and a sense of relief will wash over you.

10. Have a Meaningful Conversation with a Friend Rather than gossip or complaining, talk about you ideas. What do you have planned for yourself? what do you think is the nature of reality? Are we spiritual beings having a human experience? Talking about these things with someone helps to raise both your vibrations by thinking big. If you don’t have someone to talk to about these kinds of things with, there’s a community of higher minded individuals right here.

Paradigm Shift: The Consciousness Revolution

By: Graham Hancock, GrahamHancock.com, Guest

Here’s the full text of the article Russell Brand kindly invited me to contribute to last week’s issue of the New Statesman. The article, entitled The War on Consciousness, had to be shortened to fit the space available in the magazine, but I reproduce the complete unedited text here.

Consciousness is one of the great mysteries of science – perhaps the greatest mystery. We all know we have it, when we think, when we dream, when we savour tastes and aromas, when we hear a great symphony, when we fall in love, and it is surely the most intimate, the most sapient, the most personal part of ourselves. Yet no one can really claim to have understood and explained it completely. There’s no doubt it’s associated with the brain in some way but the nature of that association is far from clear. In particular how do these three pounds of material stuff inside our skulls allow us to have experiences?

Professor David Chalmers of the Australian National University has dubbed this the “hard problem” of consciousness; but many scientists, particularly those (still in the majority) who are philosophically inclined to believe that all phenomena can be reduced to material interactions, deny that any problem exists. To them it seems self-evident that physical processes within the stuff of the brain produce consciousness rather in the way that a generator produces electricity – i.e. consciousness is an “epiphenomenon” of brain activity. And they see it as equally obvious that there cannot be such things as conscious survival of deathor out-of-body experiences since both consciousness and experience are confined to the brain and must die when the brain dies.

Yet other scientists with equally impressive credentials are not so sure and are increasingly willing to consider a very different analogy – namely that the relationship of consciousness to the brain may be less like the relationship of the generator to the electricity it produces and more like the relationship of the TV signal to the TV set. In that case when the TV set is destroyed – dead – the signal still continues. Nothing in the present state of knowledge of neuroscience rules this revolutionary possibility out. True, if you damage certain areas of the brain certain areas of consciousness are compromised, but this does not prove that those areas of the brain generate the relevant areas of consciousness. If you were to damage certain areas of your TV set the picture would deteriorate or vanish but the TV signal would remain intact.

We are, in other words, confronted by at least as much mystery as fact around the subject of consciousness and this being the case we should remember that what seems obvious and self-evident to one generation may not seem at all obvious or self-evident to the next. For hundreds of years it was obvious and self-evident to the greatest human minds that the sun moved around the earth – one need only look to the sky, they said, to see the truth of this proposition. Indeed those who maintained the revolutionary view that the earth moved around the sun faced the Inquisition and death by burning at the stake. Yet as it turned out the revolutionaries were right and orthodoxy was terribly, ridiculously wrong.

The same may well prove to be true with the mystery of consciousness. Yes, it does seem obvious and self-evident that the brain produces it (the generator analogy), but this is a deduction from incomplete data and categorically NOT yet an established and irrefutable fact. New discoveries may force materialist science to rescind this theory in favour of something more like the TV analogy in which the brain comes to be understood as a transceiver rather than as a generator of consciousness and in which consciousness is recognized as fundamentally “non-local” in nature – perhaps even as one of the basic driving forces of the universe. At the very least we should withhold judgment on this “hard problem” until more evidence is in and view with suspicion those who hold dogmatic and ideological views about the nature of consciousness.

It’s at this point that the whole seemingly academic issue becomes intensely political and current because modern technological society idealises and is monopolistically focused on only one state of consciousness – the alert, problem-solving state of consciousness that makes us efficient producers and consumers of material goods and services. At the same time our society seeks to police and control a wide range of other “altered” states of consciousness on the basis of the unproven proposition that consciousness is generated by the brain.

I refer here to the so-called “war on drugs” which is really better understood as a war on consciousness and which maintains, supposedly in the interests of society, that we as adults do not have the right or maturity to make sovereign decisions about our own consciousness and about the states of consciousness we wish to explore and embrace. This extraordinary imposition on adult cognitive liberty is justified by the idea that our brain activity, disturbed by drugs, will adversely impact our behaviour towards others. Yet anyone who pauses to think seriously for even a moment must realize that we already have adequate laws that govern adverse behaviour towards others and that the real purpose of the “war on drugs” must therefore be to bear down on consciousness itself.

Confirmation that this is so came from the last British Labour government. It declared that its drug policy would be based on scientific evidence yet in 2009 it sacked Professor David Nutt, Chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, for stating the simple statistical fact that cannabis is less dangerous (in terms of measured “harms”) than tobacco and alcohol and that ecstasy is less dangerous than horse-riding. Clearly what was at play here were ideological issues of great importance to the powers that be. And this is an ideology that sticks stubbornly in place regardless of changes in the complexion of the government of the day. The present Conservative-Liberal coalition remains just as adamant in its enforcement of the so-called war on drugs as its Labour predecessor, and continues in the name of this “war” to pour public money – our money – into large, armed, drug-enforcement bureaucracies which are entitled to break down our doors at dead of night, invade our homes, ruin our reputations and put us behind bars.

All of this, we have been persuaded, is in our own interests. Yet if we as adults are not free to make sovereign decisions – right or wrong – about our own consciousness, that most intimate, that most sapient, that most personal part of ourselves, then in what useful sense can we be said to be free at all? And how are we to begin to take real and meaningful responsibility for all the other aspects of our lives when our governments seek to disenfranchise us from this most fundamental of all human rights and responsibilities?

In this connection it is interesting to note that our society has no objection to altering consciousness per se. On the contrary many consciousness-altering drugs, such as Prozac, Seroxat, Ritalin and alcohol, are either massively over-prescribed or freely available today, and make huge fortunes for their manufacturers, but remain entirely legal despite causing obvious harms. Could this be because such legal drugs do not alter consciousness in ways that threaten the monopolistic dominance of the alert problem-solving state of consciousness, while a good number of illegal drugs, such as cannabis, LSD, DMT and psilocybin, do?

There is a revolution in the making here, and what is at stake transcends the case for cognitive liberty as an essential and inalienable adult human right. If it turns out that the brain is not a generator but a transceiver of consciousness then we must consider some little-known scientific research that points to a seemingly outlandish possibility, namely that a particular category of illegal drugs, the hallucinogens such as LSD, DMT and psilocybin, may alter the receiver wavelength of the brain and allow us to gain contact with intelligent non-material entities, “light beings”, “spirits”, “machine elves” (as Terence McKenna called them) – perhaps even the inhabitants of other dimensions. This possibility is regarded as plain fact by shamans in hunter-gatherer societies who for thousands of years have made use of visionary plants and fungi to enter and interact with what they construe as the “spirit world”. Intriguingly it was also specifically envisaged by Dr Rick Strassman, Professor of Psychiatry at the University of New Mexico, following his ground-breaking research with human volunteers and DMT carried out in the 1990’s – a project that produced findings with shattering implications for our understanding of the nature of reality. For further information on Strassman’s revolutionary work see his book DMT: The Spirit Molecule.

Source: WakingTimes

75 Benefits of Meditation for an Inspired Life

By: Amanda Froelich, Guest, True Activist

How many times have you heard ‘meditation is good for you!’, yet you resist the actual act of sitting in silence because the mind is too great a foe to face? You’re not alone if the word ‘meditation’ strikes more fear than chords of peace, but by changing the way you think about it, perhaps it will become easier to devote at least 5 minutes per day towards contemplative reflection.

Whatever your religion, spiritual beliefs, or hectic schedule looks like, there is always time to nurture yourself a bit; this is exactly what meditation is, and the following benefits prove it!

Instead of dreading the ‘quiet time’, look forward to all the amazing benefits you can receive just by choosing to be good to yourself while letting the busy world fade away…

Psychological Benefits

1. Builds self-confidence
2. Increases Serotonin levels
3. Resolves phobias and fears
4. Helps control own thoughts
5. Helps with focus and concentration
6. Increases creativity
7. Increased brain wave coherence
8. Improves learning ability and memory
9. Increased feelings of vitality and rejuvenation
10. Increased emotional stability
11. Improves relationships
12. Mind ages at a slower rate
13. Develops Intuition
14. Improves relations at home & work
15. Able to see the larger picture in a given situation
16. Develop will power
17. Develops emotional maturity
18. Grows a stable, more balanced personality
19. Greater tolerance
20. Gives composure to act in a considered & constructive way
21. Need less sleep to recover from sleep deprivation
22. Decreased tendency to worry
23. Helps make more accurate judgments
24. Decrease in restless thinking
25. Require less time to fall asleep, beneficial for insomnia

Physiological Benefits

26. It lowers oxygen consumption rate
27. Decreases respiratory rate
28. Increases blood flow and slows the heart
29. Increases exercise tolerance
30. Leads to a deeper level of physical relaxation
31. Good for people with high blood pressure
32. Reduces anxiety attacks by lowering the levels of blood lactate
33. Enhances the immune system
34. Helps in chronic diseases such as arthritis, allergies, etc…
35. Helps in post-operative healing
36. Decreases muscle tension
37. Reduces pre-menstrual symptoms
38. Reduces activity of viruses and emotional distress
39. Drop in cholesterol levels, lowering risk of cardiovascular disease
40. Helps with weight loss
41. Higher skin resistance
42. Improved flow of air to lungs, resulting in easier breathing
43. Higher levels of DHEAS (Dehydroepiandrosterone)
44. Cure headaches and migraines
45. More inclined to sports, activities
46. Harmonize your endocrine system
47. Reduced need for medical care
48. Greater orderliness of brain functioning
49. Relaxes the nervous system
50. Heals infertility (the stress of infertility can interfere with the release of hormones that regulate ovulation)

Spiritual Benefits

51. Helps keep things in perspective
52. Provides peace of mind
53. Helps you discover your purpose
54. Increased compassion
55. Growing wisdom
56. Increases self-actualization
57. Deeper understanding of yourself and others
58. Brings body, mind, and spirit into harmony
59. Helps learn forgiveness
60. Changes attitude towards life
61. Helps one live in the present
62. Creates a widening, deepening capacity for love
63. Increases the synchronicity in life
64. Allows the experience of ‘One-ness’
65. Attain enlightenment
66. Increases acceptance of oneself
67. Discovery of the power and consciousness beyond the ego
68. Deeper level of spiritual relaxation
69. Creates a deeper relationship with God
70. Greater inner-directedness
71. Allows the inner sense of “Assurance” and “Knowledge”
72. Reduces pattern of judgment
73. Allows one to ‘let go’
74. Opens one to limit-less belief
75. Shifts one to being happier with simplicity, nature, and the self

If these benefits inspire you, consider printing the various gifts meditation offers and leave it in a place you’re likely to see every day for further inspiration. The art of meditation is not only free, it requires no equipment, is not time consuming (15-20 minutes per day), and has no negative side effects.

The only individual you are around your entire existence is yourself, so why not begin to gain a better relationship with the beautiful existence you are and reap the physical benefits! Meditation allows one to break away from the limited thinking of human existence and experience your true potential, so consider starting today!

About the Author

Amanda Froelich is a staff writer for TrueActivist.com, where this article was originally featured.

Sources:

Peer Reviewed Scientific Journals of Meditation Benefits

Meditation Research