VERITIES 6: KINdling
Explorations of the Sovereign Grand Duchy von Drakenberg
"Revisioning Our Being through Consensus, Clarity and Compassion"
Rootedness & Transcendence
"Revisioning Our Being through Consensus, Clarity and Compassion"
Rootedness & Transcendence
Genetic Genealogy * Epigenetics * Psychosocial Genomics * Meta-Genetics * KINdling
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Learning Objectives:
Discovery, Awakening, Integration, Implimentation
1. To compare traditional, contemporary and dragonkin thinking about
symbols, myths and themes and their place in the dragon heritage;
2. To analyze the creation, use and misuse (exploitation; coercion) of symbols in cultural and personal life;
3. To create symbolic meaning and describe its impact on individuals and culture;
4. To describe symbolic processes and expression in individual and group transformation;
5. To critique new conceptualizations of our historical symbols and the creation of symbolic meaning.
Vortex of energies whirled and spun
Universal energy… consciousness one…
Cultivating spiritual and psychic strength
Untapped potential soars complete…
Illumination of body… of mind….
Microcosmic conceptions of unlimited time
Through the darkness within the light shines
Piercing the blinding veil… a secret light compels…
Within the dark deep purple luminescence does one find
A universe beyond the beyond transcended life....
--Charles Johnson, IRDC
Universal energy… consciousness one…
Cultivating spiritual and psychic strength
Untapped potential soars complete…
Illumination of body… of mind….
Microcosmic conceptions of unlimited time
Through the darkness within the light shines
Piercing the blinding veil… a secret light compels…
Within the dark deep purple luminescence does one find
A universe beyond the beyond transcended life....
--Charles Johnson, IRDC
Many of us sense that, for the world to change in a profound way, a significant number of us need to awaken to -- and align with -- our true purpose and calling in life. We know deep down that we have a meaningful contribution to bring into the world, and we sense that it's only in discovering and bringing forth this potential,
that we will find our own spiritual fulfillment.
that we will find our own spiritual fulfillment.
 |
 Hermes, by Johfra Bosschart
|
INNER FIRE
I am the Hermetic King resurrected from the sepulcher of the Nigredo. My fire has been drawn out of the darkness; purified and exalted. My expansive fire is Solar by nature and I am called the Son of the Sun.
I am the purified and exalted fire of your soul. I am the solar radiance of your consciousness and the true Gold of the philosophers. Blessed are they who have assimilated the innermost nature of this most adorable Fire!
Dorn said "Become a Living Philosopher's Stone".
This inner fire is then projected outside into the world,
as we see it outside and around the vessel. It is in this way that
we transmute the world and whatever we project the Stone upon. For our stone is "Our Fire".
Once one extracts the Philosopher's Stone one eventually becomes "A Stone of the Philosophers".
Inner fire is a God-given gift and can persist in male and female lines indefinitely.
To come face-to-face with God is to look oneself in the Eye. To apprehend God is to apprehend ONESELF and to realize that THIS perceived reality -- THIS plane of existence is a Vision -- one of many Visions. Alchemy is the total science of Energy Transformation & Regeneration. This means that Philosophers of Fire attempt to create or capture 'sunshine' or 'soul-energy.' The alchemical quest is a quest to revivify ones own Soul. It is both a transcendence and an ascendence, and to discover The Stone of The Wise is indeed to BECOME The Stone. Ancient Egyptian & Vedic texts speak of the Adept living his life as a Crystal. The Knowing One is experiencing Oneself also means that one experiences Omnipresence. One is able to see what has been, what IS, what will be and ALL that can ever be, all in a single glance. --Nicolas Haywood
I am the Hermetic King resurrected from the sepulcher of the Nigredo. My fire has been drawn out of the darkness; purified and exalted. My expansive fire is Solar by nature and I am called the Son of the Sun.
I am the purified and exalted fire of your soul. I am the solar radiance of your consciousness and the true Gold of the philosophers. Blessed are they who have assimilated the innermost nature of this most adorable Fire!
Dorn said "Become a Living Philosopher's Stone".
This inner fire is then projected outside into the world,
as we see it outside and around the vessel. It is in this way that
we transmute the world and whatever we project the Stone upon. For our stone is "Our Fire".
Once one extracts the Philosopher's Stone one eventually becomes "A Stone of the Philosophers".
Inner fire is a God-given gift and can persist in male and female lines indefinitely.
To come face-to-face with God is to look oneself in the Eye. To apprehend God is to apprehend ONESELF and to realize that THIS perceived reality -- THIS plane of existence is a Vision -- one of many Visions. Alchemy is the total science of Energy Transformation & Regeneration. This means that Philosophers of Fire attempt to create or capture 'sunshine' or 'soul-energy.' The alchemical quest is a quest to revivify ones own Soul. It is both a transcendence and an ascendence, and to discover The Stone of The Wise is indeed to BECOME The Stone. Ancient Egyptian & Vedic texts speak of the Adept living his life as a Crystal. The Knowing One is experiencing Oneself also means that one experiences Omnipresence. One is able to see what has been, what IS, what will be and ALL that can ever be, all in a single glance. --Nicolas Haywood
The KINdling Effect
by Iona Miller, 2011
A self aware Dragon is waking up in the old Dragon Lines by KINdling, Epigenetics, Sympathetic Resonance & Entanglement. KINdling causes permanent changes in dragon kin neural circuitry that facilitate clarity, vision, and Superfluid Consciousness. Kindling effects result from epigenetics, gene-expression and neuroplasticity, the ability of groupings of neurons to change and realign themselves in response to repeated exposure to [kinship] stimuli.
by Iona Miller, 2011
A self aware Dragon is waking up in the old Dragon Lines by KINdling, Epigenetics, Sympathetic Resonance & Entanglement. KINdling causes permanent changes in dragon kin neural circuitry that facilitate clarity, vision, and Superfluid Consciousness. Kindling effects result from epigenetics, gene-expression and neuroplasticity, the ability of groupings of neurons to change and realign themselves in response to repeated exposure to [kinship] stimuli.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics
Epigenetics is the study of heritable changes in gene expression or cellular phenotype caused by mechanisms other than changes in the underlying DNA sequence – hence the name epi- (Greek: επί- over, above, outer) -genetics. Examples of such changes might be DNA methylation or histone deacetylation, both of which serve to suppress gene expression without altering the sequence of the silenced genes.
At its most basic, epigenetics is the study of changes in gene activity that do not involve alterations to the genetic code but still get passed down to at least one successive generation. These patterns of gene expression are governed by the cellular material — the epigenome — that sits on top of the genome, just outside it (hence the prefix epi-, which means above). It is these epigenetic "marks" that tell your genes to switch on or off, to speak loudly or whisper. It is through epigenetic marks that environmental factors can make an imprint on genes that is passed from one generation to the next.
These changes may remain through cell divisions for the remainder of the cell's life and may also last for multiple generations. However, there is no change in the underlying DNA sequence of the organism;instead, non-genetic factors cause the organism's genes to behave (or "express themselves") differently. A single fertilized egg cell – the zygote – changes into the many cell types including neurons, muscle cells, epithelium, endothelium of blood vessels etc. as it continues to divide. It does so by activating some genes while inhibiting others.
The epigenetic code can be rewritten quickly and to dramatic effect. Our epigenome may also undergo relatively rapid spontaneous change with a powerful influence on our biological traits. Epigenetic events might silence genes when they aren’t needed, then turned them back on when external conditions warrant.. So much for “changing gene frequencies”. This isn’t “changing gene frequencies” (the normal description of “evolution”), but changing epigenetic markers. Epigenetics dwarfs the rate of spontaneous change seen at the DNA sequence level by about five orders of magnitude. Epigenomes are changeable, programmable and will feed us the bottom line on how the genome works.
With the Human Genome Project largely complete, scientists are turning to variation in the epigenome and beginning to map chemical modifications of DNA that affect gene expression. Two recent studies that provide the first comprehensive maps of human DNA methylation -- one of the most commonly studied epigenetic modifications. The changes are much more subtle and clever than we might imagine. Some regions remain methylated, some become demethylated, some become methylated, and these changes can occur in certain genes, certain parts of genes, and certain things that aren't genes.
Specific epigenetic processes include paramutation, bookmarking, imprinting, gene silencing, X chromosome inactivation, position effect, reprogramming, transvection, maternal effects, the progress of carcinogenesis, many effects of teratogens, regulation of histone modifications and heterochromatin, and technical limitations affecting parthenogenesis and cloning.
At its most basic, epigenetics is the study of changes in gene activity that do not involve alterations to the genetic code but still get passed down to at least one successive generation. These patterns of gene expression are governed by the cellular material — the epigenome — that sits on top of the genome, just outside it (hence the prefix epi-, which means above). It is these epigenetic "marks" that tell your genes to switch on or off, to speak loudly or whisper. It is through epigenetic marks that environmental factors can make an imprint on genes that is passed from one generation to the next.
These changes may remain through cell divisions for the remainder of the cell's life and may also last for multiple generations. However, there is no change in the underlying DNA sequence of the organism;instead, non-genetic factors cause the organism's genes to behave (or "express themselves") differently. A single fertilized egg cell – the zygote – changes into the many cell types including neurons, muscle cells, epithelium, endothelium of blood vessels etc. as it continues to divide. It does so by activating some genes while inhibiting others.
The epigenetic code can be rewritten quickly and to dramatic effect. Our epigenome may also undergo relatively rapid spontaneous change with a powerful influence on our biological traits. Epigenetic events might silence genes when they aren’t needed, then turned them back on when external conditions warrant.. So much for “changing gene frequencies”. This isn’t “changing gene frequencies” (the normal description of “evolution”), but changing epigenetic markers. Epigenetics dwarfs the rate of spontaneous change seen at the DNA sequence level by about five orders of magnitude. Epigenomes are changeable, programmable and will feed us the bottom line on how the genome works.
With the Human Genome Project largely complete, scientists are turning to variation in the epigenome and beginning to map chemical modifications of DNA that affect gene expression. Two recent studies that provide the first comprehensive maps of human DNA methylation -- one of the most commonly studied epigenetic modifications. The changes are much more subtle and clever than we might imagine. Some regions remain methylated, some become demethylated, some become methylated, and these changes can occur in certain genes, certain parts of genes, and certain things that aren't genes.
Specific epigenetic processes include paramutation, bookmarking, imprinting, gene silencing, X chromosome inactivation, position effect, reprogramming, transvection, maternal effects, the progress of carcinogenesis, many effects of teratogens, regulation of histone modifications and heterochromatin, and technical limitations affecting parthenogenesis and cloning.
More Than Metaphor?
KINdling is a metaphor that implies Inner Fire, Light or Life Force can be stimulated and modulated by driving forces both internal and external to ourselves. The word kindling is thus a metaphor for the stimulation and modulation of energy dynamics. The increase in response to small stimuli is similar to the way small burning twigs can ignite a large fire. By resonance, mirroring and entanglement, dragon kin can awaken latent capacities in one another in a similar KINdling process, facilitating superfluid consciousness.
Our "epigenetic" code - an extra layer of biochemical instructions in DNA - can evolve more quickly than the genetic code and can strongly influence biological traits. "It's not all in the genes," says Joseph Ecker, a professor in Salk's Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology Laboratory, who led the research team. "We found that these plants have an epigenetic code that's more flexible and influential than we imagined. There is clearly a component of heritability that we don't fully understand. It's possible that we humans have a similarly active epigenetic mechanism that controls our biological characteristics and gets passed down to our children. "
With the advent of techniques for rapidly mapping the DNA of organisms, scientists have found that the genes stored in the four-letter DNA code don't always determine how an organism develops and responds to its environment. The more biologists map the genomes of various organisms (their entire genetic code), the more they are discovering discrepancies between what the genetic code dictates and how organisms actually look and function.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-09/si-ag091611.php
Uncommon Descent
Scientists have even found that identical human twins exhibit different biological traits, despite their matching DNA sequences. They have theorized that such unexplained disparities could be the work of epigenetic variation. Since none of these patterns of variation and inheritance match what the genetic sequence says should happen, there is a clearly a component of the 'genetic' heritability that is missing. Epigenetics shows patterns of divergence compared to the ancestral state. Thus, transgenerational epigenetic variation in DNA methylation may generate new allelic states that alter transcription, providing a mechanism for phenotypic diversity in the absence of genetic mutation.
Ecker and other scientists have traced these mysterious patterns to chemical markers that serve as a layer of genetic control on top of the DNA sequence. Just as genetic mutations can arise spontaneously and be inherited by subsequent generations, epigenetic mutations can emerge in individuals and spread into the broader population.
Although scientists have identified a number of epigenetic traits, very little was known about how often they arose spontaneously, how quickly they could spread through a population and how significant an influence they could have on biological development and function.
Researchers found that overall there is very little change between each generation, but spontaneous epimutations do exist in populations and arise at a rate much higher than the DNA mutation rate, and at times they had a powerful influence over how certain genes were expressed. They mapped the state of all locations on the DNA molecule that could undergo a chemical modification known as methylation, a key epigenetic change that can alter how certain underlying genes are expressed. They then watched how methylation states of these sites evolved over the generations.
Superfluid Consciousness
The epigenetic code is far more fluid than genetic code. Even more surprising was the extent to which some of these changes turned genes on or off, for substantial alterations in their expression - the process by which genes control cellular function through protein production. Not only do the epigenomes morph rapidly despite the absence of any strong environmental pressure, but these changes have a powerful influence on form and function.
Ecker said the results of the study provide some of the first evidence that the epigenetic code can be rewritten quickly and to dramatic effect. "This means that genes are not destiny," he said. "...our epigenome may also undergo relatively rapid spontaneous change that could have a powerful influence on our biological traits." The wisdom of the grandmothers in their mitochondrial DNA. .Is this the long-hidden mechanism for awakening dragonkin to their full potential?
The Sleeper Must Awaken
Researchers have shown the extent to which spontaneous epigenetic mutations occur. They plan to unravel the biochemical mechanisms that allow these changes to arise and get passed from one generation to the next. They also hope to explore how different environmental conditions, such as differences in temperature, might drive epigenetic change, or, conversely, whether epigenetic traits provide organisms with more flexibility in coping with environmental change. "We think these epigenetic events might silence genes when they aren't needed, then turn them back on when external conditions warrant," Ecker said.
The key is in the ignition. What gets ignited is primordial energy transformation and transcendence. The pre-physical quantum ground state is the vacuum. The Gnostics were correct in insisting this void is a Pleroma, a plenum of information-infused energy that interacts with the manifest world. There is a relation between DNA, epigenetics, the topology of the vacuum, morphological development and evolution in biology. In the Pleroma state, polarities neutralize in balance leading to a sense of peace, as inner conflicts resolve.
The KINdling concept is analogous to the "butterfly effect" in chaos theory which demonstrates how a small amount of energy applied strategically in time or space can be pumped up into macrocosmic effects. In this trope, small change at one place in a nonlinear system can result in large differences to a later state. Such state changes are most often permanent or continue to evolve based on their attractor patterns. Such forces can either build or destroy, create order or chaos.
In Synch
Sympathetic resonance, entrainment and entanglement are related concepts we can use to amplify and explore our model. Resonance is a harmonic phenomenon where a formerly passive string or vibratory body responds to or is entrained by external vibrations to which it has a harmonic likeness. Recent research has revealed applications in quantum physics, brain function, and the acoustic and photonic nature of DNA holographic projection. The discovery of 'mirror neurons' in the human brain has revealed subtle resonant linkages in our interpersonal relationships.
Brainwave synchronization is the ability of the brain to synchronize with external stimuli such as another individual, as well as visual and/or audio signals. Brainwave synchronization is also called Frequency-Following Effect, Photonic Stimulation, Photonic Driving, and Visual and/or Brainwave Synchronization. Brainwave synchronization is very effective for changing from one brain wave state to a targeted brainwave state. Such spontaneous "biofeedback" may be one of the mechanisms behind shamanic and psychotherapeutic healing, through mirroring and shared "biofeedback".
Mirror, Mirror
This cluster of mirror neurons holds the key to understanding many enigmatic aspects of human evolution. Pre-adaptive mirror neurons affect us from the cradle to the grave, being associated with bonding, imitative learning and collective consciousness. We construct a self-image first of our bodies and their capacities and limitations through experimentation, and then of our essential nature as we gaze into the "mirrors" of our caregivers.
Learning replicates itself within cultures with astounding speed, sometimes refered to as 'the hundredth monkey effect'. Mirror neurons could well play a role in resilience, mentoring, language and self-awareness. Our primal self-images shapes our perceptions based on the input of our senses and nervous system. Mirror neurons fire when we observe others expressing or doing similar actions. They help us read and understand the intentions of others. Therefore, they are the psychobiological root of mindreading, empathy, "mindsharing," and our innate ability to adapt and change -- resilience, as well as innovation.
We can mirror the optimistic positive attitudes and aptitudes of our mentors. Shamanic processes of mindsharing involve a shared reality in which the integrity of the mentor stabilizes the journeyer even though they may be moving through fear and pain in a highly emotional state. The empathic sensing, "mind reading," and compassionate reassurance of the mentor sustains the dynamic momentum of the process as it moves spontaneously toward natural healing. Mindsharing comes down to us from the ancient shamanic tradition of spiritual healing.
"A shaman is someone whose specialty is induction of a well state, someone who may help either through research or treatment to induce a state in someone else's brain that will produce health," according to psychiatrist Arnold Mandell. "But the brain is an open, instrinsically unstable system, and its higher level order may be not just the wires and connection of a switchboard but all the turbulence and eddies of streams and waterfalls. And yet it has a statistical stability, an inertia. If it's perturbed enough, it gets more and more turbulent. It fractures, then organizes into a new regime. The brain is my cosmology. I sometimes think the rest of science is the brain's picture of itself."
Inner journeys, using our dreams, symptoms, feelings, fears and pain as doorways to deeper levels of ourselves, allow us to exercise our right-brain functions much as intellectual pursuits exercise the rational mind. They also help us find and share our joy. We connect directly with our emotions, our non-linear irrational elements and the sensations that arise in our psychophysical being.
By directing our attention toward our inner process we connect with the eternal source of wisdom and our intuition comes to the fore. An inherent part of the process of changing from the inside out is that as the deepest self transforms, downline faculties such as beliefs, thoughts, feelings, and behavior, as well as psychosomatic condition, automatically change as well. Thus, resilience can be seen as the ability to dynamically change at the most fundamental level toward a more adaptive way of being in the world.
DNA's asymmetrical qualities might be a significant factor in genetically influencing other asymmetrical aspects of the human body, such as hemispheric differentiations, organ placement, and so on. Their rationale is as follows: "The double strands of each DNA molecule encode genetic information in terms of the sequencing of component amino acids. The two long strands are wound around each other in a clockwise spiral; thus, the DNA molecule cannot be superimposed upon its mirror reflection,"
In other words, its mirrored reflection represents a reversed image of the original DNA molecule rather than an image that could be placed identically onto its original; its right helix would be on the left, and its left helix would be on the right and its genetic codes would be read backwards. The laws of physics claim to work the same for any phenomenon's identically mirrored image as they do for the original phenomenon. Only sequencing information, such as written information--like the DNA codes--do not reflect symmetrically, and thus introduce asymmetry into the application of natural laws.
There is an "underlying cytoplasmic gradient operating during embryonic development that favors the left side of the body." They conclude that systematic asymmetries of morphology, molecular biology, and sub-atomic interactions are ultimately linked, and that there is, after all, an absolute, universal distinction between left and right. So, our question becomes, "can we use this information about our brains' asymmetrically functioning "parts" to become more resilient?"
Cogitive neuroscience speaks of Mirror Neurons as the driving force behind "the great leap forward" in human evolution. V.S. Ramachandran claims that the discovery of mirror neurons in the frontal lobes of monkeys, and their potential relevance to human brain evolution is the single most important "unreported" (or at least, unpublicized) story of the decade. He predicts that mirror neurons will do for psychology what DNA did for biology: they will provide a unifying framework and help explain a host of mental abilities that have hitherto remained mysterious and inaccessible to experiments.
The fundamental scientific discovery is that every physical system has fields of energy that permeate and surround that system. When systems vibrate at their optimal frequency spectrums, they are able to function more efficiently and deliver expected, even enhanced, levels of performance. When these systems are not vibrating ideally, reduced efficiency and performance can result. In humans, the principal energy system is known as the "Biofield" - a term officially recognized by the U.S. National Institutes of Health. In ancient times it was called subtle energy, chi, prana.
Light My Fire
While the term 'kindling' is used in brain research to refer to "electrical kindling", symbolically it can be applied more widely as a metaphor for "ignition" by repeated exposure or stimulation producing emergent phenomena. Kindling has been shown to effect both transient and permanent gene expression in some contexts, and that extends our metaphor toward plausible effects in unreported pathways. We don't have to take such notions literally to benefit from their conceptual application.
In disease process, electrical kindling alters the hippocampal expression of the mRNA expression of methyl DNA-binding factors, suggesting that this family of transcriptional regulators can be differentially altered. We suggest, at least conceptually or symbolically, that kindling can represent positive change or potentiation, as well. Many mysteries of gene expression and brain plasticity remain to be examined.
Biophotons govern the interaction of coherent EM fields and biological matter, in a coupled feedback loop between field and matter. Biophotons also have a characteristic frequency that defines their resonance patterns and energy distribution. The dominating role of source and sink of the field is likely DNA, which produces most of the biophotons. Both morphology and dynamics of DNA indicate it is a phase-conjugate adaptive resonance antenna. It both transmits and receives holographic information from the subquantal domain.
DNA receives and emits this information as biophotons that coordinate, communicate and stimulate the biochemistry. Waves of energy vibrate and resonate with one another creating an interference pattern that is a 3-dimensional holographic field. From the center of each cell, DNA molecules create, coordinate, and control the field. By altering our biophoton field, we can change our DNA expression.
According to Popp, "The high degree of coherence of biophotons elucidates the universal phenomenon of biological systems — coherence of biophotons is responsible for the information transfer within and between cells. This answers the crucial question of intra and extracellular biocommunication, including the regulation of metabolic activities of cells, growth, differentiation and evolutionary development."
Our intuition guides us in possibly fruitful directions for research and experimentation. If seizures can be kindled into creating permanent brain pathways through gene expression, can the same be said for the unusual electrical activity potentiated by self-discovery and transcendence? Therapeutically, we know that just as one traumatic event can induce a toxic pattern, one therapeutic event can utterly reverse or overwrite that pattern. The 'placebo effect' shows that beliefs have the potential to both harm and 'cure'. Can such beliefs produce transformations or stimulate visionary experience or spiritual deliverance?
Indigenous Awakening
We can look to indigenous cultures for examples of such transformations, rooted in genetics, culture, visions and belief.
"In traditional Huichol culture, spiritual pursuits and visionary experience are the central tasks in life. Huicholes eat and live, and maintain tribal and planetary balance celebrating a pantheon of ancestors and holy places. The marakame are the most highly respected leaders of the communities. The position seems to run in families, but it is also possible to be called to the work by the spirits. Most are men, but there are a few female marakame. Learning to become a marakame takes many years. The successful candidate has to absorb an enormous body of knowledge, including the use of medicinal plants; learn to recite compellingly the sacred stories and to summon the help of spirits. Not a day goes by without a marakame making the time to connect with these ancestral spirits. The marakame know the deities well and they are not afraid to serve as vehicles for their healing power. Sometimes they successfully conquer illnesses and sometimes not.
"Possessed by energy more powerful than anything we could do to defend against it; when you open yourself to the magic of cosmic awakening, sometimes things bubble up that you don’t want to see. If you dwell on those things then the sound of your own wheels can drive you crazy because you lose your connection with your whole self. The task, when we are bombarded by an unrestrained access into the unconscious, is to hang on while it flows through you, until you can find a way out of the swamp of your demons and find peace with who you truly are.
"Healers are always faced with the dilemma of seeking to expand their healing powers without becoming seduced by them. The task is to wrestle with this mysterious, spirit world while maintaining support in your everyday reality. These powerful forces are part of our nature and indispensable in healing others and ourselves . . . but, the task is in appreciating the magic of what you see without becoming possessed by it. If you live entirely in the unconscious you become a sorcerer. You become hooked on the Point of the Arrow by arrogance, pride, and ego. Healing is all about balance, keeping yourself and the process in perspective, don’t take yourself too seriously, and give up control of what you never had control of anyway." (Hammerschlag)
We can reinterpret the notion of 'kindling' with a positive arc, relating to concepts of sympathetic resonance, entrainment, and quantum entanglement, which can be applied in the psychosocial field. It bears on how we connect with our essential nature, others and Cosmos. Can we awaken and balance the forces within through the relational field? Shamanism and modern psychotherapeutics show that intense creative relationships can 'kindle' positive healing and creativity through the phenomena of psychic contagion and 'mirroring', by 'kindling' transformation through what Jung named the transcendent fuction.
"Come you lost Atoms to your Centre draw,
And be the Eternal Mirror that you saw:
Rays that have wander'd into Darkness wide
Return and back into your Sun subside"
-- The Conference of the Birds, Sufi Poems of Farid ud-Din Attar
And be the Eternal Mirror that you saw:
Rays that have wander'd into Darkness wide
Return and back into your Sun subside"
-- The Conference of the Birds, Sufi Poems of Farid ud-Din Attar
Entangled Relationships
In quantum mechanics, 'entanglement' is a phenomena that explains synchronous nonlocal action. Likewise in the relational domain, 'entangled minds' is a notion that has been explored in noetic science. It has been suggested in the field of radionics as a guiding principle for the transformation of subtle energy, suggesting applications in the modulations of the biofield, energy body or field body via the life force or chi energy. Thus, 'kindling' can be imagined as the emergence or transformation of preferred pathways of neuronal activity that result in multidimensional psychophysical changes in behavior, emotions, thoughts, and beliefs.
In the preface to his 2006 book Entangled Minds, Dean Radin explores this notion of quantum reality at the human scale. Could a similar entanglement of minds explain our apparent psychic abilities, as well as the ancient practices of shamanism?
One of the most surprising discoveries of modern physics is that objects aren't as separate as they may seem. When you drill down into the core of even the most solid-looking material, separateness dissolves. All that remains, like the smile of the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland, are relationships extending curiously throughout space and time. These connections were predicted by quantum theory and were called "spooky action at a distance" by Albert Einstein. One of the founders of quantum theory, Erwin Schrödinger, dubbed this peculiarity entanglement, saying "I would not call that one but rather the characteristic trait of quantum mechanics."
The deeper reality suggested by the existence of entanglement is so unlike the world of everyday experience that until recently, many physicists believed it was interesting only for abstract theoretical reasons. They accepted that the microscopic world of elementary particles could become curiously entangled, but those entangled states were assumed to be fleeting and have no practical consequences for the world as we experience it. That view is rapidly changing.
Scientists are now finding that there are ways in which the effects of microscopic entanglements "scale up" into our macroscopic world. Entangled connections between carefully prepared atomic-sized objects can persist over many miles. There are theoretical descriptions showing how tasks can be accomplished by entangled groups without the members of the group communicating with each other in any conventional way. Some scientists suggest that the remarkable degree of coherence displayed in living systems might depend in some fundamental way on quantum effects like entanglement. Others suggest that conscious awareness is caused or related in some important way to entangled particles in the brain. Some even propose that the entire universe is a single, self-entangled object.
What if these speculations are correct? What would human experience be like in such an interconnected universe? Would we occasionally have numinous feelings of connectedness with loved ones at a distance? Would such experiences evoke a feeling of awe that there's more to reality than common sense implies? Could "entangled minds" result in the experience of your hearing the telephone ring and somehow knowing - instantly - who's calling? If we did have such experiences, could they be due to real information that somehow bypassed the usual sensory channels, or are such reports mere delusions? Can psychic or "psi" experiences be studied by science, or are they beyond the reach of rational understanding?
When the fabric of reality is examined very closely, nothing resembling clockworks can be found. Instead, reality is woven from strange, "holistic" threads that aren't located precisely in space or time. Tug on a dangling loose end from this fabric of reality, and the whole cloth twitches, instantly, throughout all space and time.
Science is at the very earliest stages of understanding entanglement, and there is much yet to learn. But what we've seen so far provides a new way of thinking about psi. No longer are psi experiences regarded as rare human talents, divine gifts, or "powers" that magically transcend ordinary physical boundaries. Instead, psi becomes an unavoidable consequence of living in an interconnected, entangled physical reality. Psi is reframed from a bizarre anomaly that doesn't fit into the normal world - and hence labeled paranormal - into a natural phenomenon of physics.
The idea of the universe as an interconnected whole is not new; for millennia it's been one of the core assumptions of Eastern philosophies. What is new is that Western science is slowly beginning to realize that some elements of that ancient lore might be correct.
Soul Retrieval
Kindling is a metaphor that implies Inner Fire or Light can be stimulated and modulated by driving forces both internal and external to ourselves. Soul retrieval is an ancient shamanic technique for healing the fragmented self that is perhaps 50,000 years old.
"KINdling" is a possible mechanism for 'soul retrieval' in the dragon lines and an alternative mechanism for the mutual stimulation of gene expression in psychosocial genomics. Soul Retrieval is part of our Journey to Wholeness and quest for self-knowledge. It refers to shamanic practices that reintegrate various interpretations of the soul that might have become disconnected, trapped or lost through trauma -- loss of vitality and connection to life. KINdling is renewal of life force.
Soul Retrieval opens the door to self realization as Soul. From a shamanic point of view, part of the soul may split off, or dissociate, when we experience trauma or abuse. Soul loss is a spiritual illness that causes emotional and physical disease. We need to be re-tuned, recalibrated from the deepest level of our being - from the Source Field where our patterns remain intact, undisturbed and self-organizing. The lost soul has been found, retrieved, and revitalized. Many report that even nonlocal contact with dragon kin spontaneously reawakens a new energy or level of vitality in themselves. Such spontaneous phenomena can be called "KINdling."
Souls seek their spiritual connection with self -- gnosis -- higher consciousness. We seek to return to our primordial roots and our celestial heights. But what does that mean? Return to do what? Save the wounded souls from what? Lead them where? The wounds of the 3-D experience give way to balance and movement to higher levels of consciousness. It is about letting go of the ties that bind you to the emotions of the physical realms and the rebirth of your soul/consciousness in higher being and light - higher frequencies of thought and understanding.
We are aware of our dysfunctions and need healing to create balance. Our emotions range from love to the pain inflicted by the wounds we and those around us create. It is in truth all about growth and experience which is why we often feel abandoned by our god-figure who allows us to suffer. We spend much of our time healing our wounds. We come to metaphysics or drugs for answers we cannot find in the world - for our souls know the physical is not the whole truth.
Those healed become the healers...but it is a continuous process of healing, in which consciousness is being awakened. The 'wounds' of many lifetimes need to heal. This is the spiritual pulse.
According to many indigenous cultures, imbalance or illness is caused by 'soul loss'. Recurring dreams of childhood locales and dream encounters with younger versions of ourselves may indicate time is ripe for a soul retrieval. Such soul retrieval refers to a psychological healing process that begins at the spiritual level. The Greek word for soul is "psyche," the root of our word "psychology." The Greeks say that soul is not the same as spirit; their word for spirit is "pneuma."
We need to 're-vision' soul retrieval by viewing it not only as a reintegration of the personality, but also as an affirmation of polytheistic soul that is at the heart of the "I-Thou" of human and Cosmic life. If soul is both one and many, then the centripetal re-connection to multiple soul compensates the centrifugal re-collection of an original unity of soul. Just as shamans, through initiation death-rebirth must heal themselves, so we transcend the "dis-ease" of imbalance and conflict by becoming consciously centred in the Self rather than in the one-sided ego. This action frees up our genetic predisposition for transcendence, facilitating superfluid consciousness.
Shamans describe the soul as the essential self that is unique and can't be replaced by anyone else's soul nor by spiritual energy. But dragons do have a latent capacity to kindle spontaneous healing and genetic memory in one another. Shamanic practitioners journey to retrieve lost soul parts, bringing back their essence. Shamans look at the spiritual form of illness which might manifest on an emotional or physical level, preventing remembrance of one's essential nature. Healing is a form of creativity.
True healing also means reconnecting the the World Soul -- Anima Mundi. Individuation does not shut one out from the world but gathers the world to oneself. So, soul-making gathers the individual to all-pervasive soul, anima mundi expanding into the even more inclusive sphere of unus mundus. In this interweaving waltz, through the Dionysian explosion of the isolated ego, soul's diffusive movement outward meets soul's infusive movement from outer to inner. The two merge in an imaginal Cosmos, whose Centre, as all shamans know (through imaginal 'gnosis'), is everywhere.
If "soul" refers also to an anima mundi, a world soul, then as alchemists such as Paracelsus stated, the soul in one sense lies beyond the individual and belongs to a mode of reality beyond our control. In the Neoplatonic Fourth Ennead, Plotinus discusses whether all individuals are one soul, while the merging of individual and universal Tao is, as the alchemist Gerhard Dorn noted, the third degree of the alchemical coniunctio, the most mature phase of individuation as the realization of one's communion with an original unitary reality, what Jung describes as 'the eternal Ground of all empirical being'. As a mode of consciousness, such re-collection is grounded in the intuition of a centred sphere of soul, a microcosm which through the alchemical dictum "As Above, so Below", mirrors the outer macrocosm of Cosmos.
In variants of soul retrieval such as Carlos Castaneda's recapitulation technique, fragments of soul are sought solely within the memories of the retriever, making them largely psychoanalytical in nature; in others, the scope extends to rehabilitation of lost souls of the deceased, paralleling the Roman Catholic practice of offering prayer for the dead to assist their progress through purgatory. Robert Monroe explored the concept of retrieval extensively through use of out-of-body and astral projection techniques, sometimes finding the personalities perceived suggestive of prior incarnations of oneself as well as ancestral and phylogenetic memories.
KINdling Bioenergy
KINdling takes place in the infolded (negative) time dimension of virtual photon flux (hyperspace), or zero-point. The effect of coherent time collection is 'kindling', and orthorotation of one type of field into another. The collection of de Broglie waves is moving much faster than light (supraliminal). And for very slow-moving objects, the collected and projected bioenergy on their deBroglie waves is moving at essentially infinite velocity. Thought energy can be turned into electromagnetic energy by 'kindling' and can even be materialized if 'kindling' is of sufficient intensity.
Actually the mechanism is simple. In the minute electrical currents that run through the nervous system, across the cell membranes, through the fibrous content of the cells, and through the cell water structures, virtual state thought energy is continually 'kindled' into weak electrical patterns which modulate, shape, and affect all the vital processes of the body. Almost all this 'kindled' thought energy is from the content of the unconscious mind. Thus the locked-in contents of our un-conscious minds eventually directly affect and change our bodies for either good or bad, depending on the particular content being kindled. The entire body-mind is our Memory.
Even the best Faraday cages cannot shield out bioenergy communication, because every mass communicates with every other mass in the total Universe with hyperspatial/virtual cross-talk between all parts and all masses. Each photon contains all possibilities and virtual states modulated upon itself. As time passes, the virtual photons are more-and-more psychotronically modulated by the 'kindling' effect. Eventually the collection breaches orthoframe thresholds and reaches the electromagnetic field frame, changing the electromagnetic field.
The virtual state can be collated and collected to sufficient magnitude to breach the quantum threshold and induce ordinary observable physical change. Moreover, the entire record of the Earth is still in the earth in all its detail. As indeed is the record of each star and its planets, riding on the light that reaches us from that star, and on the deBroglie waves from it. With operational biodetectors, we could easily read the records of the Universe. It is in the virtual state riding in each photon. To a psychic who can see the human aura easily, the condition and much of the record of the person is in that aura, because the auric pattern is changed by all experience of the body, mind, and personality.
These modulations are simply coherently collected to breach the threshold of the virtual (3rd) orthoframe, passing into the 2nd orthoframe, then breaching the threshold of that frame, and passing into the 1st orthoframe, which is the frame of the electromagnetic field. The electric field is coupled by the dual closure mechanism to the gravitational field and also to the mass. The entire mechanism constitutes the coupling of the virtual state reality to observable state reality, and the electromagnetic field plays a prominent part in this coupling. Psychotronics is nothing but the extrapolation of this mechanism and the formulation of a theory to allow the construction of practical devices based upon it. Put simply, psychotronics is virtual state engineering.
Internal dynamic collector mechanisms of the chosen object perform collection and 'kindling' of the virtual state. Thus each mechanism is slowly changed by the influence of other objects in the universe. This is very like the diffusion of heat. The chosen object also communicates part of the influx away, normally reaching an equilibrium with its surroundings when these surroundings are stable. As the surroundings change, appropriate changes are communicated into the internal collector mechanisms of the chosen object, and appropriately diffused away to other parts of the Universe until equilibrium is again reached that occur. It is thus a very exact record of its surrounding events.
The deBroglie wave carrier alone will simply take the bioenergy right through any known substance. More precisely, it will take the bioenergy around the 3-space in which the barrier substance exists, since deBroglie waves are actually superluminal particles in a 3-space more than one orthogonal turn away from the observer's 3-space. (Bearden)
http://www.stealthskater.com/Documents/Bearden_23.pdf
Brain Kindling
In 1969, G.V. Goddard and his associates reported a peculiar kindling effect generated by repeated, periodic, low-intensity stimulation of the limbic region of mammalian brains. A sustained periodic signal input to the brain and central nervous system eventually sets up a cumulative resonance which increases in magnitude until the entire organism is in sympathetic resonance.
Whether in a positive or negative drection, kindling is a relatively permanent state of heightened susceptibility (Gilbert, 1994). Kindling effects result from neuroplasticity, the ability of groupings of neurons to change and realign themselves in response to repeated exposure to stimuli.
A laboratory rat at first continues to explore its environment in a normal manner when it is subjected to kindling. But after repeated stimulation at the same intensity, the rat will begin to rear up and its forelimbs will convulse. Eventually these bursts of electrical activity induce similar patterns in nearby brain regions, and the threshold becomes progressively lowered. Stimulation progresses to the amygdala, to the amygdala on the other side of the brain, to the hippocampus, to the occipital cortex, and finally to the frontal cortex. Kindling can start only in the limbic structures.
While KINdling was originally thought to be a model of epilepsy, John Gaito of York University has reported that a different mechanism is apparently involved since the amino acid, taurine, which suppresses epileptic seizures in laboratory animals, does not prevent phenomena caused by kindling. Also, kindling apparently causes permanent changes in the neural circuitry. Pulsed repetitions of telepathic senders have also been shown to increase the reception of telepathic messages. Thus the kindling effect apparently applies to the paranormal channel as well as to more orthodox transmission channels. (For further details, see "Kindling, once epilepsy model, may relate to kundalini," Brain/ Mind Bulletin, Vol. 2, No.7, February 21, 1977; pp. 1-2.)
The KINdling mechanism is a far more general mechanism than epilepsy researchers have realized. Coherent time collection of bioenergy in one bioframe "kindles" toward the threshold of the next bioframe, which has a fixed threshold. When sufficient kindling occurs to reach the threshold, automatic orthogonal rotation of the kindled bioenergy occurs into the next frame. There it simply constitutes the kindling or superposition of the imperceivable subquantum state into the perceivable quantum state. This is the mechanism whereby one kind of field can be turned into another. E.g., thought energy (third biofield) can be kindled into second biofield (flux), which can be kindled into first biofield (electromagnetic energy), which can be kindled into zeroth biofield (matter). (Tom Bearden, Excalibur Briefing)
Kindling Vision
Our lost god-kings were said to be great shamans, who studied the alchemical and spiritual link between man and the universe. Shamanism is said to be man’s oldest religion. One theme that emerges from a study of comparative shamanism is the universal nature of the experience. A shaman in the African veldt and his counterpart in Alaska seem to be sharing the same experience, an ecstasy of enlightenment gained when the soul leaves the body in search of a vision. The vision becomes the bedrock upon which his life will progress, guided by the animal spirit seen in the vision. The eye of a hawk, wing of an eagle, swiftness of a stag, strength of a moose. These are the riches sought.
Another theme prevalent in shamanism is the sacred cave under an equally sacred mountain. The mountain may be artificial as in a pyramid or mound, but the same process occurs, the cave is a portal to the spiritual world, often called fairyland, Hades, the Underworld, Middle Earth, Hollow Earth or even the Other Side. The mountain is often topped with a temple where one may commune directly with the deity.
As Mircea Eliade pointed out in Shamanism, the archetypal pattern of shamanic initiation invarialy combines descent into the underworld with ascent into the heavens. And the accomplishment of this dual feat both in rituals and in the dreams is the necessary precondition of shamanism: "He who has undergone them has transcended the secular condition of humanity"; that is, he has become holy, sacred, numinous through his encounter. Shamanic initiation invariably combines descent to the underworld with ascent into the heavens.
And the accomplishment of this dual feat both in rituals and in the dreams is the necessary precondition of shamanism: "with the healer archetype in him or herself and the subsequent ability to constellate it for others. The charismatic power of the shaman depends not only on his ability to fall into a trance but on his ability to do it at will - i.e. he is not the victim of the trance but its master. He controls it. He has the art of lucid trancing, perfecting the skill of voluntary entry into the liminal state. He imparts to all those who encounter him "that sense of an immortal inhabitant within the individual which is announced in every mystical tradition...which [itself] neither dies nor is born, but simply passes back and forth, as it were through a veil, appearing in bodies and departing." (Campbell, 1962).
This phenomenon was well understood by the Vedantic tradition, which is the psychology of the perennial philosophy: it defined three states of consciousnes - waking, sleeping, and dreaming - and a fourth state which transcends and incorporates them all. Could it be that the shaman is the virtuoso of the fourth state? The survival of cultures, as well as genes, dictates that each generation must integrate old wisdom with new knowledge. This was the function of myths, ritual, initiation rites, and religion, as it still is the function of dreams.
Myth provides a people with its unifying metaphor, its narrative sense of ownig a place in the story of creation. Too readily we overlook the simple truth that we are here as temporary guests of our Mother Nature and father Spirit. Mythic consciousness is informed with the intuitive wisdom of the dreaming mind, the visionary self, as well as the factual knowledge of rational awareness.
Richard Dawkins has proposed the concept of the "meme" as a unit of culture, spread by imitation, the cultural analogue of genes. It is a metaphor for the ideas, myths, customs, works of art and science that are passed along in human cultures as unitary and competing entities, a cognitive virus. Selfish memes, like selfish genes, are interested in their own perpetuation and may guide natural selections for bigger brains, language, religion, sexual selection, altruism, urbanization, etc. Memetic evolution, retransmitting and self-propogating ideas, is only made possible by the human ability to imitate.
Mystical Kindling
How are mystical "hot spots" kindled? Just because spirituality is partially genetic doesn't mean it is hardwired. It is still subject to kindling of preferred pathways and genetic expression of potentials. The controversial God gene hypothesis proposes that we inherit a set of genes that predispose us towards spiritual or mystic experiences. This pet-theory is a hypothesis proposed by geneticist Dean Hamer, the director of the Gene Structure and Regulation Unit at the U.S. National Cancer Institute, and author of The God Gene: How Faith is Hardwired into our Genes. But, much like the concept of the so-called God Particle or postulated Higgs Boson in physics, (currently under research at CERN), it remains purely theoretical.
The God gene concept is based on a combination of behavioral genetic, neurobiological and psychological studies. The major arguments of the theory are: (1) spirituality can be quantified by psychometric measurements; (2) the underlying tendency to spirituality is partially heritable; (3) part of this heritability can be attributed to the gene VMAT2; (4) this gene acts by altering monoamine levels; and (5) spiritual individuals are favored by natural selection because they are provided with an innate sense of optimism, the latter producing positive effects at either a physical and psychological level.
The vesicular monoamine transporter 2 (VMAT2) also known as solute carrier family 18 member 2 (SLC18A2) is a protein that in humans is encoded by the SLC18A2 gene. VMAT2 is an integral membrane protein that acts to transport monoamines—particularly neurotransmitters such as dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, and histamine—from cellular cytosol into synaptic vesicles.
Supposedly, the God gene (VMAT2) is a physiological arrangement that produces the sensations often associated with mystic experiences, including the presence of God or others, or more specifically spirituality as a state of mind. It does not encode or cause belief in God itself. Religious feeling cannot strictly be said to be located in a single area (as per "God Spot"), but employs general neural circuitry.
Regardless of whether God exists or not, religious beliefs do exist and that psychobiology can be experimentally studied. "Felt-presence" has been studied by persinger who created and modulated such impressions with electromagnetic fields applied externally to the brain. Such effects demonstrate how apparent inner experiences can be modified from and by the environment. Illusory experience runs a spectrum from relatively benign to paranoid delusions.
Other influential factors, including brain dynamics are explored in the science of Neurotheology, the neural basis of spirituality. It studies the emergent phenomenology when certain centers in the brain are modulated, synchronized, and stimulated or taken offline, using techniques such as meditation or in spontaneous response such as nature-mystic experience. Mystical religious experiences are linked with decreased parietal lobe activity. Pathological factors, such as Temporal Lobe Lability (TLT), or epilepsy are also studied, since they can produce seemingly "mystical" illusions.
The brain also produces endogenous hallucinogens in certain circumstances. Near-death experiences (NDE's) can be reproduced by ketamine via blockade of receptors in the brain (the N-methyl-D-aspartate, NMDA receptors) for the neurotransmitter glutamate. Conditions which precipitate NDE's (hypoxia, ischaemia, hypoglycaemia, temporal lobe epilepsy etc.) have been shown to release a flood of glutamate, overactivating NMDA receptors resulting in neuro ('excito') toxicity. Ketamine prevents this neurotoxicity. There are substances in the brain which bind to the same receptor site as ketamine. Conditions which trigger a glutamate flood may also trigger a flood of neuroprotective agents which bind to NMDA receptors to protect cells, leading to an altered state of consciousness like that produced by ketamine.
Important features of NDE's include a sense that what is experienced is 'real' and that one is actually dead, a sense of ineffability, timelessness, and feelings of calm and peace, although some cases have been frightening. There may be analgesia, apparent clarity of thought, a perception of separation from the body, and hallucinations of landscapes, beings such as 'angels', people including partners, parents, teachers and friends (who may be alive at the time), and religous and mythical figures. Transcendant mystical states are commonly described. Memories may emerge into consciousness, and are rarely organized into a 'life review' (Greyson, 1983).
This hypothesis links most of the neurobiological and psychological theories (hypoxia, a peptide flood, temporal lobe electrical abnormalities, regression in the service of the ego, reactivation of birth memories, sensory deprivation etc.) rather than being an alternative to them. Most of the tenets of the hypothesis are strongly supported by experimental evidence which implicates glutamate and NMDA receptors in the processes which precipitate NDE's. Spiritual interpretations of such experience are culturally conditioned. Not all reports of NDEs are blissful; some are terrifying.
Neurotheology covers spiritual experiences of phenomena which are the basis of beliefs, built from four key interconnected components: perceptions, emotions, cognitions, and social interactions.
Psychologist Robert Cloninger quantified the hereditary tendency for spirituality by the self-transcendence scale, which is composed of three sub-sets: "self-forgetfulness" (as in the tendency to become totally absorbed in some activity, such as reading); "transpersonal identification" (a feeling of connectedness to a larger universe); and "mysticism" (an openness to believe things not literally provable, such as ESP). Cloninger suggests that taken together, these measurements are a reasonable way to quantify (make measurable) how spiritual someone is feeling.
The self-transcendence measure was shown to be heritable by classical twin studies conducted by Lindon Eaves and Nicholas Martin. Interestingly, these studies show that specific religious beliefs (such as belief in Jesus) have no genetic basis and are instead memes, that is cultural units transmitted by non-genetic means, as by imitation. We could call this meme-formation a form of cultural kindling, that sometimes spreads like wildfire.
In order to identify some of the specific genes involved in self-transcendence, Hamer analyzed DNA and personality score data from over 1000 individuals and identified one particular locus, VMAT2, with a significant correlation. VMAT2 codes for a vesicular monoamine transporter that plays a key role in regulating the levels of the brain chemicals serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine. These monoamine transmitters are in turn postulated to play an important role in regulating the brain activities associated with mystic beliefs.
What evolutionary advantage this may convey, or what advantageous effect it is a side effect of, are questions that are yet to be fully explored. However, Dr. Hamer has hypothesized that self-transcendence makes people more optimistic, which makes them healthier and likely to have more children.
A variety of brain regions, including the limbic system, regulate self-consciousness, emotion and body representation. While there is no single God Spot in the brain, the temporal lobes can produce sub-clinical effects many interpret as mystical phenomena. When stimulated the so-called "God Spot" or "God module" creates hallucinations that are interpreted as mystical or spiritual experiences. This temporal lobe 'spot' is stimulated during meditation and prayer and is affected by electromagnetic fields and epilepsy.
The resulting hallucinations may be the cause of mystical, spiritual and paranormal experiences as they can give feelings such as a presence in the room or an out of body experience. The transcendental feeling of being one with the universe results from decreased activity in the brain's parietal lobe, which helps regulate the sense of self and physical orientation. The amygdala and hippocampus are involved in the experience of visions, profound experiences, memory, and meditation.
Meditation increases activity in the front part of the brain and decreases activity in the area of the brain that orients our bodies in space. This increased frontal activity is found not only during meditation, but also during any attention-focusing task. Explanations of these influences come from personal beliefs; a visit from an angel or lost loved one, an extraterrestrial encounter, a higher plane of consciousness or a visit from God.
The religious element of our nature is just as universal as the rational or social one. Could altering brain chemistry by playing some visual and pleasure circuits, while quieting those governing self-image, cognition, orientation, and time sequencing give rise to a transcendental bliss, a god-experience? Can they give rise to the electrochemical supercharge described as kundalini, the serpent power that rises up the spine in self-transcendence or illumination?
Kundalini KINdling
Some of the conditions for the initiation or KINdling of kundalini appear to be:
Hyperactivation of the thyroid and parathyroids.
Hyperactivation of estrogen and testosterone (plus metabolities of T. eg: Estradiol).
Hyperactivation of the sympathetic nervous system (adrenaline, norepinephrine).
Hyperactivation of the stress hormones (corticosteroids eg: cortisol, DHEA) Hyperactivation of opiate systems (endorphins, enkephalins, anandamide, phenylethylamine).
Repetitive or overwhelming circumstances and conditions create cumulative resonance that increases in magnitude until the entire organism is in sympathetic resonance. The barriers to unity are penetrated so to speak. The increased charge and particular frequency of neural firing opens up unique neural thresholds in crucial parts of the brain. As the contagion of kundalini builds it pulls all bodymind systems into its service. Kundalini awakenings are likely if hyper-arousal of the nervous system is kept going for several years and conditions of perpetual irritation to the brain neurons occurs. The particular blend of hormones and neurotransmitters reduces the threshold by which kundalini passes through the body. Like a river of fire, kundalini forges its own effluent cascade through the nerve tributaries and sustains itself through the changes it induces. In recent years there has been some attempt to correlate the phenomena of kindling with kundalini.
Kindling in epilepsy was first discovered accidentally by researcher Graham Goddard in 1967. He found that a sustained, periodic, low-intensity stimulation of the limbic region of mammalian brains eventually sets up a cumulative resonance which increases in magnitude until the entire organism is in sympathetic resonance. Eventually these bursts of electrical activity induce similar patterns in nearby brain regions, and the seizure threshold progressively lowered. While normally the electrical stimulation he used was too low to cause any type of convulsing, he discovered that repeated exposure of brain areas to small electric shocks seem to make subsequent episodes of spontaneous seizure-like electrical events more likely to occur. After repeated stimulation at the same intensity, their brains had become sensitized to electricity, and even months later the subject would convulse when stimulated.
The name KINdling was chosen because the process was likened to a log fire. While the log itself is very hard to set afire in the first place, when surrounded by smaller, pieces of wood, kindling, soon the log itself will catch fire. There is evidence that the more mood episodes a person has, the harder it is to treat each subsequent episode..." thus taking the kindling analogy one step further: that a fire which has spread is harder to put out.
The kindling sensitization hypothesis suggests that initial seizure episodes make it more likely that future seizure and depressive episodes will occur. Spontaneous kindling is more likely if there has been early damage to the brain through chemical exposure, childhood sexual or emotional abuse, or if one has inherited a sensitive nervous system. If reared in an abnormal, deprived, stressful and socially isolated environment, the limbic system neurons will atrophy and the septal nuclei, amygdala and hippocampus may develop seizure-like activity, referred to as kindling.
Trauma affects our capacity for cortical control over the limbic system to regulate bodily homeostatsis. This includes unusual patterns of cortisol, norepinepherine, and dopamine metabolite excretion; the role of serotonergic and opioid systems (arousal and numbing); receptor modification by processes such as kindling; and involvement of central pathways involved in the integration of perception, memory and arousal.
Kindling can start only in the limbic brain where it progresses from the amygdala, then to the amygdala on the other side of the brain, to the hippocampus, to the occipital cortex, and finally to the frontal cortex. In fetal brain development the limbic or emotional brain predates the development of the cortex or "seat of intelligence". The brain's limbic system modulates emotions and memory organization systems, balance, gastrointestinal motility, the autonomic nervous system, and the auditory and visual integration of stimuli.
While kindling was originally thought to be a model of epilepsy, John Gaito of York University has reported that a different mechanism is apparently involved since the amino acid, taurine, which suppresses epileptic seizures in laboratory animals, does not prevent phenomena caused by kindling. Also, kindling apparently causes permanent changes in the neural circuitry.
Kundalini has elements similar to the kindling phenomena, and yet runs through a very complicated sequence of "events." The article: "Kindling, once epilepsy model, may relate to kundalini," Brain/ Mind Bulletin, Vol. 2, No.7, February 21, 1977; pp. 1-2.) reports on the convulsion-like phenomenon called kundalini. At the Max Planck Institute in Germany, subjects reported "electrical sensations, tingling, inner lights, even convulsions usually followed over a period of time by a moderation of 'symptoms' and apparent alterations in the central nervous system." This article says that the kundalini phenomena typically occurs after a period of meditation in a setting that is non-threatening. This report suggests that while meditating, the individual tries to arrest all thought or cortical activity, thus allowing the evolutionary more primitive areas of the brain to assert itself. The Kindling Model is one of the current interpretations of PTSD. The scientists concluded that those who experienced the kundalini phenomenon were actually reexperiencing primal pain laid down before the brain has completely developed (Toxic Mind Theory).
In quantum mechanics, 'entanglement' is a phenomena that explains synchronous nonlocal action. Likewise in the relational domain, 'entangled minds' is a notion that has been explored in noetic science. It has been suggested in the field of radionics as a guiding principle for the transformation of subtle energy, suggesting applications in the modulations of the biofield, energy body or field body via the life force or chi energy. Thus, 'kindling' can be imagined as the emergence or transformation of preferred pathways of neuronal activity that result in multidimensional psychophysical changes in behavior, emotions, thoughts, and beliefs.
In the preface to his 2006 book Entangled Minds, Dean Radin explores this notion of quantum reality at the human scale. Could a similar entanglement of minds explain our apparent psychic abilities, as well as the ancient practices of shamanism?
One of the most surprising discoveries of modern physics is that objects aren't as separate as they may seem. When you drill down into the core of even the most solid-looking material, separateness dissolves. All that remains, like the smile of the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland, are relationships extending curiously throughout space and time. These connections were predicted by quantum theory and were called "spooky action at a distance" by Albert Einstein. One of the founders of quantum theory, Erwin Schrödinger, dubbed this peculiarity entanglement, saying "I would not call that one but rather the characteristic trait of quantum mechanics."
The deeper reality suggested by the existence of entanglement is so unlike the world of everyday experience that until recently, many physicists believed it was interesting only for abstract theoretical reasons. They accepted that the microscopic world of elementary particles could become curiously entangled, but those entangled states were assumed to be fleeting and have no practical consequences for the world as we experience it. That view is rapidly changing.
Scientists are now finding that there are ways in which the effects of microscopic entanglements "scale up" into our macroscopic world. Entangled connections between carefully prepared atomic-sized objects can persist over many miles. There are theoretical descriptions showing how tasks can be accomplished by entangled groups without the members of the group communicating with each other in any conventional way. Some scientists suggest that the remarkable degree of coherence displayed in living systems might depend in some fundamental way on quantum effects like entanglement. Others suggest that conscious awareness is caused or related in some important way to entangled particles in the brain. Some even propose that the entire universe is a single, self-entangled object.
What if these speculations are correct? What would human experience be like in such an interconnected universe? Would we occasionally have numinous feelings of connectedness with loved ones at a distance? Would such experiences evoke a feeling of awe that there's more to reality than common sense implies? Could "entangled minds" result in the experience of your hearing the telephone ring and somehow knowing - instantly - who's calling? If we did have such experiences, could they be due to real information that somehow bypassed the usual sensory channels, or are such reports mere delusions? Can psychic or "psi" experiences be studied by science, or are they beyond the reach of rational understanding?
When the fabric of reality is examined very closely, nothing resembling clockworks can be found. Instead, reality is woven from strange, "holistic" threads that aren't located precisely in space or time. Tug on a dangling loose end from this fabric of reality, and the whole cloth twitches, instantly, throughout all space and time.
Science is at the very earliest stages of understanding entanglement, and there is much yet to learn. But what we've seen so far provides a new way of thinking about psi. No longer are psi experiences regarded as rare human talents, divine gifts, or "powers" that magically transcend ordinary physical boundaries. Instead, psi becomes an unavoidable consequence of living in an interconnected, entangled physical reality. Psi is reframed from a bizarre anomaly that doesn't fit into the normal world - and hence labeled paranormal - into a natural phenomenon of physics.
The idea of the universe as an interconnected whole is not new; for millennia it's been one of the core assumptions of Eastern philosophies. What is new is that Western science is slowly beginning to realize that some elements of that ancient lore might be correct.
Soul Retrieval
Kindling is a metaphor that implies Inner Fire or Light can be stimulated and modulated by driving forces both internal and external to ourselves. Soul retrieval is an ancient shamanic technique for healing the fragmented self that is perhaps 50,000 years old.
"KINdling" is a possible mechanism for 'soul retrieval' in the dragon lines and an alternative mechanism for the mutual stimulation of gene expression in psychosocial genomics. Soul Retrieval is part of our Journey to Wholeness and quest for self-knowledge. It refers to shamanic practices that reintegrate various interpretations of the soul that might have become disconnected, trapped or lost through trauma -- loss of vitality and connection to life. KINdling is renewal of life force.
Soul Retrieval opens the door to self realization as Soul. From a shamanic point of view, part of the soul may split off, or dissociate, when we experience trauma or abuse. Soul loss is a spiritual illness that causes emotional and physical disease. We need to be re-tuned, recalibrated from the deepest level of our being - from the Source Field where our patterns remain intact, undisturbed and self-organizing. The lost soul has been found, retrieved, and revitalized. Many report that even nonlocal contact with dragon kin spontaneously reawakens a new energy or level of vitality in themselves. Such spontaneous phenomena can be called "KINdling."
Souls seek their spiritual connection with self -- gnosis -- higher consciousness. We seek to return to our primordial roots and our celestial heights. But what does that mean? Return to do what? Save the wounded souls from what? Lead them where? The wounds of the 3-D experience give way to balance and movement to higher levels of consciousness. It is about letting go of the ties that bind you to the emotions of the physical realms and the rebirth of your soul/consciousness in higher being and light - higher frequencies of thought and understanding.
We are aware of our dysfunctions and need healing to create balance. Our emotions range from love to the pain inflicted by the wounds we and those around us create. It is in truth all about growth and experience which is why we often feel abandoned by our god-figure who allows us to suffer. We spend much of our time healing our wounds. We come to metaphysics or drugs for answers we cannot find in the world - for our souls know the physical is not the whole truth.
Those healed become the healers...but it is a continuous process of healing, in which consciousness is being awakened. The 'wounds' of many lifetimes need to heal. This is the spiritual pulse.
According to many indigenous cultures, imbalance or illness is caused by 'soul loss'. Recurring dreams of childhood locales and dream encounters with younger versions of ourselves may indicate time is ripe for a soul retrieval. Such soul retrieval refers to a psychological healing process that begins at the spiritual level. The Greek word for soul is "psyche," the root of our word "psychology." The Greeks say that soul is not the same as spirit; their word for spirit is "pneuma."
We need to 're-vision' soul retrieval by viewing it not only as a reintegration of the personality, but also as an affirmation of polytheistic soul that is at the heart of the "I-Thou" of human and Cosmic life. If soul is both one and many, then the centripetal re-connection to multiple soul compensates the centrifugal re-collection of an original unity of soul. Just as shamans, through initiation death-rebirth must heal themselves, so we transcend the "dis-ease" of imbalance and conflict by becoming consciously centred in the Self rather than in the one-sided ego. This action frees up our genetic predisposition for transcendence, facilitating superfluid consciousness.
Shamans describe the soul as the essential self that is unique and can't be replaced by anyone else's soul nor by spiritual energy. But dragons do have a latent capacity to kindle spontaneous healing and genetic memory in one another. Shamanic practitioners journey to retrieve lost soul parts, bringing back their essence. Shamans look at the spiritual form of illness which might manifest on an emotional or physical level, preventing remembrance of one's essential nature. Healing is a form of creativity.
True healing also means reconnecting the the World Soul -- Anima Mundi. Individuation does not shut one out from the world but gathers the world to oneself. So, soul-making gathers the individual to all-pervasive soul, anima mundi expanding into the even more inclusive sphere of unus mundus. In this interweaving waltz, through the Dionysian explosion of the isolated ego, soul's diffusive movement outward meets soul's infusive movement from outer to inner. The two merge in an imaginal Cosmos, whose Centre, as all shamans know (through imaginal 'gnosis'), is everywhere.
If "soul" refers also to an anima mundi, a world soul, then as alchemists such as Paracelsus stated, the soul in one sense lies beyond the individual and belongs to a mode of reality beyond our control. In the Neoplatonic Fourth Ennead, Plotinus discusses whether all individuals are one soul, while the merging of individual and universal Tao is, as the alchemist Gerhard Dorn noted, the third degree of the alchemical coniunctio, the most mature phase of individuation as the realization of one's communion with an original unitary reality, what Jung describes as 'the eternal Ground of all empirical being'. As a mode of consciousness, such re-collection is grounded in the intuition of a centred sphere of soul, a microcosm which through the alchemical dictum "As Above, so Below", mirrors the outer macrocosm of Cosmos.
In variants of soul retrieval such as Carlos Castaneda's recapitulation technique, fragments of soul are sought solely within the memories of the retriever, making them largely psychoanalytical in nature; in others, the scope extends to rehabilitation of lost souls of the deceased, paralleling the Roman Catholic practice of offering prayer for the dead to assist their progress through purgatory. Robert Monroe explored the concept of retrieval extensively through use of out-of-body and astral projection techniques, sometimes finding the personalities perceived suggestive of prior incarnations of oneself as well as ancestral and phylogenetic memories.
KINdling Bioenergy
KINdling takes place in the infolded (negative) time dimension of virtual photon flux (hyperspace), or zero-point. The effect of coherent time collection is 'kindling', and orthorotation of one type of field into another. The collection of de Broglie waves is moving much faster than light (supraliminal). And for very slow-moving objects, the collected and projected bioenergy on their deBroglie waves is moving at essentially infinite velocity. Thought energy can be turned into electromagnetic energy by 'kindling' and can even be materialized if 'kindling' is of sufficient intensity.
Actually the mechanism is simple. In the minute electrical currents that run through the nervous system, across the cell membranes, through the fibrous content of the cells, and through the cell water structures, virtual state thought energy is continually 'kindled' into weak electrical patterns which modulate, shape, and affect all the vital processes of the body. Almost all this 'kindled' thought energy is from the content of the unconscious mind. Thus the locked-in contents of our un-conscious minds eventually directly affect and change our bodies for either good or bad, depending on the particular content being kindled. The entire body-mind is our Memory.
Even the best Faraday cages cannot shield out bioenergy communication, because every mass communicates with every other mass in the total Universe with hyperspatial/virtual cross-talk between all parts and all masses. Each photon contains all possibilities and virtual states modulated upon itself. As time passes, the virtual photons are more-and-more psychotronically modulated by the 'kindling' effect. Eventually the collection breaches orthoframe thresholds and reaches the electromagnetic field frame, changing the electromagnetic field.
The virtual state can be collated and collected to sufficient magnitude to breach the quantum threshold and induce ordinary observable physical change. Moreover, the entire record of the Earth is still in the earth in all its detail. As indeed is the record of each star and its planets, riding on the light that reaches us from that star, and on the deBroglie waves from it. With operational biodetectors, we could easily read the records of the Universe. It is in the virtual state riding in each photon. To a psychic who can see the human aura easily, the condition and much of the record of the person is in that aura, because the auric pattern is changed by all experience of the body, mind, and personality.
These modulations are simply coherently collected to breach the threshold of the virtual (3rd) orthoframe, passing into the 2nd orthoframe, then breaching the threshold of that frame, and passing into the 1st orthoframe, which is the frame of the electromagnetic field. The electric field is coupled by the dual closure mechanism to the gravitational field and also to the mass. The entire mechanism constitutes the coupling of the virtual state reality to observable state reality, and the electromagnetic field plays a prominent part in this coupling. Psychotronics is nothing but the extrapolation of this mechanism and the formulation of a theory to allow the construction of practical devices based upon it. Put simply, psychotronics is virtual state engineering.
Internal dynamic collector mechanisms of the chosen object perform collection and 'kindling' of the virtual state. Thus each mechanism is slowly changed by the influence of other objects in the universe. This is very like the diffusion of heat. The chosen object also communicates part of the influx away, normally reaching an equilibrium with its surroundings when these surroundings are stable. As the surroundings change, appropriate changes are communicated into the internal collector mechanisms of the chosen object, and appropriately diffused away to other parts of the Universe until equilibrium is again reached that occur. It is thus a very exact record of its surrounding events.
The deBroglie wave carrier alone will simply take the bioenergy right through any known substance. More precisely, it will take the bioenergy around the 3-space in which the barrier substance exists, since deBroglie waves are actually superluminal particles in a 3-space more than one orthogonal turn away from the observer's 3-space. (Bearden)
http://www.stealthskater.com/Documents/Bearden_23.pdf
Brain Kindling
In 1969, G.V. Goddard and his associates reported a peculiar kindling effect generated by repeated, periodic, low-intensity stimulation of the limbic region of mammalian brains. A sustained periodic signal input to the brain and central nervous system eventually sets up a cumulative resonance which increases in magnitude until the entire organism is in sympathetic resonance.
Whether in a positive or negative drection, kindling is a relatively permanent state of heightened susceptibility (Gilbert, 1994). Kindling effects result from neuroplasticity, the ability of groupings of neurons to change and realign themselves in response to repeated exposure to stimuli.
A laboratory rat at first continues to explore its environment in a normal manner when it is subjected to kindling. But after repeated stimulation at the same intensity, the rat will begin to rear up and its forelimbs will convulse. Eventually these bursts of electrical activity induce similar patterns in nearby brain regions, and the threshold becomes progressively lowered. Stimulation progresses to the amygdala, to the amygdala on the other side of the brain, to the hippocampus, to the occipital cortex, and finally to the frontal cortex. Kindling can start only in the limbic structures.
While KINdling was originally thought to be a model of epilepsy, John Gaito of York University has reported that a different mechanism is apparently involved since the amino acid, taurine, which suppresses epileptic seizures in laboratory animals, does not prevent phenomena caused by kindling. Also, kindling apparently causes permanent changes in the neural circuitry. Pulsed repetitions of telepathic senders have also been shown to increase the reception of telepathic messages. Thus the kindling effect apparently applies to the paranormal channel as well as to more orthodox transmission channels. (For further details, see "Kindling, once epilepsy model, may relate to kundalini," Brain/ Mind Bulletin, Vol. 2, No.7, February 21, 1977; pp. 1-2.)
The KINdling mechanism is a far more general mechanism than epilepsy researchers have realized. Coherent time collection of bioenergy in one bioframe "kindles" toward the threshold of the next bioframe, which has a fixed threshold. When sufficient kindling occurs to reach the threshold, automatic orthogonal rotation of the kindled bioenergy occurs into the next frame. There it simply constitutes the kindling or superposition of the imperceivable subquantum state into the perceivable quantum state. This is the mechanism whereby one kind of field can be turned into another. E.g., thought energy (third biofield) can be kindled into second biofield (flux), which can be kindled into first biofield (electromagnetic energy), which can be kindled into zeroth biofield (matter). (Tom Bearden, Excalibur Briefing)
Kindling Vision
Our lost god-kings were said to be great shamans, who studied the alchemical and spiritual link between man and the universe. Shamanism is said to be man’s oldest religion. One theme that emerges from a study of comparative shamanism is the universal nature of the experience. A shaman in the African veldt and his counterpart in Alaska seem to be sharing the same experience, an ecstasy of enlightenment gained when the soul leaves the body in search of a vision. The vision becomes the bedrock upon which his life will progress, guided by the animal spirit seen in the vision. The eye of a hawk, wing of an eagle, swiftness of a stag, strength of a moose. These are the riches sought.
Another theme prevalent in shamanism is the sacred cave under an equally sacred mountain. The mountain may be artificial as in a pyramid or mound, but the same process occurs, the cave is a portal to the spiritual world, often called fairyland, Hades, the Underworld, Middle Earth, Hollow Earth or even the Other Side. The mountain is often topped with a temple where one may commune directly with the deity.
As Mircea Eliade pointed out in Shamanism, the archetypal pattern of shamanic initiation invarialy combines descent into the underworld with ascent into the heavens. And the accomplishment of this dual feat both in rituals and in the dreams is the necessary precondition of shamanism: "He who has undergone them has transcended the secular condition of humanity"; that is, he has become holy, sacred, numinous through his encounter. Shamanic initiation invariably combines descent to the underworld with ascent into the heavens.
And the accomplishment of this dual feat both in rituals and in the dreams is the necessary precondition of shamanism: "with the healer archetype in him or herself and the subsequent ability to constellate it for others. The charismatic power of the shaman depends not only on his ability to fall into a trance but on his ability to do it at will - i.e. he is not the victim of the trance but its master. He controls it. He has the art of lucid trancing, perfecting the skill of voluntary entry into the liminal state. He imparts to all those who encounter him "that sense of an immortal inhabitant within the individual which is announced in every mystical tradition...which [itself] neither dies nor is born, but simply passes back and forth, as it were through a veil, appearing in bodies and departing." (Campbell, 1962).
This phenomenon was well understood by the Vedantic tradition, which is the psychology of the perennial philosophy: it defined three states of consciousnes - waking, sleeping, and dreaming - and a fourth state which transcends and incorporates them all. Could it be that the shaman is the virtuoso of the fourth state? The survival of cultures, as well as genes, dictates that each generation must integrate old wisdom with new knowledge. This was the function of myths, ritual, initiation rites, and religion, as it still is the function of dreams.
Myth provides a people with its unifying metaphor, its narrative sense of ownig a place in the story of creation. Too readily we overlook the simple truth that we are here as temporary guests of our Mother Nature and father Spirit. Mythic consciousness is informed with the intuitive wisdom of the dreaming mind, the visionary self, as well as the factual knowledge of rational awareness.
Richard Dawkins has proposed the concept of the "meme" as a unit of culture, spread by imitation, the cultural analogue of genes. It is a metaphor for the ideas, myths, customs, works of art and science that are passed along in human cultures as unitary and competing entities, a cognitive virus. Selfish memes, like selfish genes, are interested in their own perpetuation and may guide natural selections for bigger brains, language, religion, sexual selection, altruism, urbanization, etc. Memetic evolution, retransmitting and self-propogating ideas, is only made possible by the human ability to imitate.
Mystical Kindling
How are mystical "hot spots" kindled? Just because spirituality is partially genetic doesn't mean it is hardwired. It is still subject to kindling of preferred pathways and genetic expression of potentials. The controversial God gene hypothesis proposes that we inherit a set of genes that predispose us towards spiritual or mystic experiences. This pet-theory is a hypothesis proposed by geneticist Dean Hamer, the director of the Gene Structure and Regulation Unit at the U.S. National Cancer Institute, and author of The God Gene: How Faith is Hardwired into our Genes. But, much like the concept of the so-called God Particle or postulated Higgs Boson in physics, (currently under research at CERN), it remains purely theoretical.
The God gene concept is based on a combination of behavioral genetic, neurobiological and psychological studies. The major arguments of the theory are: (1) spirituality can be quantified by psychometric measurements; (2) the underlying tendency to spirituality is partially heritable; (3) part of this heritability can be attributed to the gene VMAT2; (4) this gene acts by altering monoamine levels; and (5) spiritual individuals are favored by natural selection because they are provided with an innate sense of optimism, the latter producing positive effects at either a physical and psychological level.
The vesicular monoamine transporter 2 (VMAT2) also known as solute carrier family 18 member 2 (SLC18A2) is a protein that in humans is encoded by the SLC18A2 gene. VMAT2 is an integral membrane protein that acts to transport monoamines—particularly neurotransmitters such as dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, and histamine—from cellular cytosol into synaptic vesicles.
Supposedly, the God gene (VMAT2) is a physiological arrangement that produces the sensations often associated with mystic experiences, including the presence of God or others, or more specifically spirituality as a state of mind. It does not encode or cause belief in God itself. Religious feeling cannot strictly be said to be located in a single area (as per "God Spot"), but employs general neural circuitry.
Regardless of whether God exists or not, religious beliefs do exist and that psychobiology can be experimentally studied. "Felt-presence" has been studied by persinger who created and modulated such impressions with electromagnetic fields applied externally to the brain. Such effects demonstrate how apparent inner experiences can be modified from and by the environment. Illusory experience runs a spectrum from relatively benign to paranoid delusions.
Other influential factors, including brain dynamics are explored in the science of Neurotheology, the neural basis of spirituality. It studies the emergent phenomenology when certain centers in the brain are modulated, synchronized, and stimulated or taken offline, using techniques such as meditation or in spontaneous response such as nature-mystic experience. Mystical religious experiences are linked with decreased parietal lobe activity. Pathological factors, such as Temporal Lobe Lability (TLT), or epilepsy are also studied, since they can produce seemingly "mystical" illusions.
The brain also produces endogenous hallucinogens in certain circumstances. Near-death experiences (NDE's) can be reproduced by ketamine via blockade of receptors in the brain (the N-methyl-D-aspartate, NMDA receptors) for the neurotransmitter glutamate. Conditions which precipitate NDE's (hypoxia, ischaemia, hypoglycaemia, temporal lobe epilepsy etc.) have been shown to release a flood of glutamate, overactivating NMDA receptors resulting in neuro ('excito') toxicity. Ketamine prevents this neurotoxicity. There are substances in the brain which bind to the same receptor site as ketamine. Conditions which trigger a glutamate flood may also trigger a flood of neuroprotective agents which bind to NMDA receptors to protect cells, leading to an altered state of consciousness like that produced by ketamine.
Important features of NDE's include a sense that what is experienced is 'real' and that one is actually dead, a sense of ineffability, timelessness, and feelings of calm and peace, although some cases have been frightening. There may be analgesia, apparent clarity of thought, a perception of separation from the body, and hallucinations of landscapes, beings such as 'angels', people including partners, parents, teachers and friends (who may be alive at the time), and religous and mythical figures. Transcendant mystical states are commonly described. Memories may emerge into consciousness, and are rarely organized into a 'life review' (Greyson, 1983).
This hypothesis links most of the neurobiological and psychological theories (hypoxia, a peptide flood, temporal lobe electrical abnormalities, regression in the service of the ego, reactivation of birth memories, sensory deprivation etc.) rather than being an alternative to them. Most of the tenets of the hypothesis are strongly supported by experimental evidence which implicates glutamate and NMDA receptors in the processes which precipitate NDE's. Spiritual interpretations of such experience are culturally conditioned. Not all reports of NDEs are blissful; some are terrifying.
Neurotheology covers spiritual experiences of phenomena which are the basis of beliefs, built from four key interconnected components: perceptions, emotions, cognitions, and social interactions.
- The perception that space/time orientation ceases; "spaced out"
- NDE; ego death
- Fear, alienation and self-consciousness dissolve
- Nature mysic experiences or spiritual awe; bliss
- Creativity and connection with Source
- Ego submits to will of Self
- DNA memory coiling back to the dawn of life
- Sense of immortality and interspecies symbiosis
- Oneness with the universe
- Ecstatic trance; self-transcendence; psychophysical rapture
- Sudden enlightenment, stabilizing over time
- Altered States of Consciousness; temporal lobe visions
- Pure Awareness; Illumination
- Increase of N,N-Dimethyltryptamine DMT levels in the 1000 Petalled Lotus or Pineal Gland.
Psychologist Robert Cloninger quantified the hereditary tendency for spirituality by the self-transcendence scale, which is composed of three sub-sets: "self-forgetfulness" (as in the tendency to become totally absorbed in some activity, such as reading); "transpersonal identification" (a feeling of connectedness to a larger universe); and "mysticism" (an openness to believe things not literally provable, such as ESP). Cloninger suggests that taken together, these measurements are a reasonable way to quantify (make measurable) how spiritual someone is feeling.
The self-transcendence measure was shown to be heritable by classical twin studies conducted by Lindon Eaves and Nicholas Martin. Interestingly, these studies show that specific religious beliefs (such as belief in Jesus) have no genetic basis and are instead memes, that is cultural units transmitted by non-genetic means, as by imitation. We could call this meme-formation a form of cultural kindling, that sometimes spreads like wildfire.
In order to identify some of the specific genes involved in self-transcendence, Hamer analyzed DNA and personality score data from over 1000 individuals and identified one particular locus, VMAT2, with a significant correlation. VMAT2 codes for a vesicular monoamine transporter that plays a key role in regulating the levels of the brain chemicals serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine. These monoamine transmitters are in turn postulated to play an important role in regulating the brain activities associated with mystic beliefs.
What evolutionary advantage this may convey, or what advantageous effect it is a side effect of, are questions that are yet to be fully explored. However, Dr. Hamer has hypothesized that self-transcendence makes people more optimistic, which makes them healthier and likely to have more children.
A variety of brain regions, including the limbic system, regulate self-consciousness, emotion and body representation. While there is no single God Spot in the brain, the temporal lobes can produce sub-clinical effects many interpret as mystical phenomena. When stimulated the so-called "God Spot" or "God module" creates hallucinations that are interpreted as mystical or spiritual experiences. This temporal lobe 'spot' is stimulated during meditation and prayer and is affected by electromagnetic fields and epilepsy.
The resulting hallucinations may be the cause of mystical, spiritual and paranormal experiences as they can give feelings such as a presence in the room or an out of body experience. The transcendental feeling of being one with the universe results from decreased activity in the brain's parietal lobe, which helps regulate the sense of self and physical orientation. The amygdala and hippocampus are involved in the experience of visions, profound experiences, memory, and meditation.
Meditation increases activity in the front part of the brain and decreases activity in the area of the brain that orients our bodies in space. This increased frontal activity is found not only during meditation, but also during any attention-focusing task. Explanations of these influences come from personal beliefs; a visit from an angel or lost loved one, an extraterrestrial encounter, a higher plane of consciousness or a visit from God.
The religious element of our nature is just as universal as the rational or social one. Could altering brain chemistry by playing some visual and pleasure circuits, while quieting those governing self-image, cognition, orientation, and time sequencing give rise to a transcendental bliss, a god-experience? Can they give rise to the electrochemical supercharge described as kundalini, the serpent power that rises up the spine in self-transcendence or illumination?
Kundalini KINdling
Some of the conditions for the initiation or KINdling of kundalini appear to be:
Hyperactivation of the thyroid and parathyroids.
Hyperactivation of estrogen and testosterone (plus metabolities of T. eg: Estradiol).
Hyperactivation of the sympathetic nervous system (adrenaline, norepinephrine).
Hyperactivation of the stress hormones (corticosteroids eg: cortisol, DHEA) Hyperactivation of opiate systems (endorphins, enkephalins, anandamide, phenylethylamine).
Repetitive or overwhelming circumstances and conditions create cumulative resonance that increases in magnitude until the entire organism is in sympathetic resonance. The barriers to unity are penetrated so to speak. The increased charge and particular frequency of neural firing opens up unique neural thresholds in crucial parts of the brain. As the contagion of kundalini builds it pulls all bodymind systems into its service. Kundalini awakenings are likely if hyper-arousal of the nervous system is kept going for several years and conditions of perpetual irritation to the brain neurons occurs. The particular blend of hormones and neurotransmitters reduces the threshold by which kundalini passes through the body. Like a river of fire, kundalini forges its own effluent cascade through the nerve tributaries and sustains itself through the changes it induces. In recent years there has been some attempt to correlate the phenomena of kindling with kundalini.
Kindling in epilepsy was first discovered accidentally by researcher Graham Goddard in 1967. He found that a sustained, periodic, low-intensity stimulation of the limbic region of mammalian brains eventually sets up a cumulative resonance which increases in magnitude until the entire organism is in sympathetic resonance. Eventually these bursts of electrical activity induce similar patterns in nearby brain regions, and the seizure threshold progressively lowered. While normally the electrical stimulation he used was too low to cause any type of convulsing, he discovered that repeated exposure of brain areas to small electric shocks seem to make subsequent episodes of spontaneous seizure-like electrical events more likely to occur. After repeated stimulation at the same intensity, their brains had become sensitized to electricity, and even months later the subject would convulse when stimulated.
The name KINdling was chosen because the process was likened to a log fire. While the log itself is very hard to set afire in the first place, when surrounded by smaller, pieces of wood, kindling, soon the log itself will catch fire. There is evidence that the more mood episodes a person has, the harder it is to treat each subsequent episode..." thus taking the kindling analogy one step further: that a fire which has spread is harder to put out.
The kindling sensitization hypothesis suggests that initial seizure episodes make it more likely that future seizure and depressive episodes will occur. Spontaneous kindling is more likely if there has been early damage to the brain through chemical exposure, childhood sexual or emotional abuse, or if one has inherited a sensitive nervous system. If reared in an abnormal, deprived, stressful and socially isolated environment, the limbic system neurons will atrophy and the septal nuclei, amygdala and hippocampus may develop seizure-like activity, referred to as kindling.
Trauma affects our capacity for cortical control over the limbic system to regulate bodily homeostatsis. This includes unusual patterns of cortisol, norepinepherine, and dopamine metabolite excretion; the role of serotonergic and opioid systems (arousal and numbing); receptor modification by processes such as kindling; and involvement of central pathways involved in the integration of perception, memory and arousal.
Kindling can start only in the limbic brain where it progresses from the amygdala, then to the amygdala on the other side of the brain, to the hippocampus, to the occipital cortex, and finally to the frontal cortex. In fetal brain development the limbic or emotional brain predates the development of the cortex or "seat of intelligence". The brain's limbic system modulates emotions and memory organization systems, balance, gastrointestinal motility, the autonomic nervous system, and the auditory and visual integration of stimuli.
While kindling was originally thought to be a model of epilepsy, John Gaito of York University has reported that a different mechanism is apparently involved since the amino acid, taurine, which suppresses epileptic seizures in laboratory animals, does not prevent phenomena caused by kindling. Also, kindling apparently causes permanent changes in the neural circuitry.
Kundalini has elements similar to the kindling phenomena, and yet runs through a very complicated sequence of "events." The article: "Kindling, once epilepsy model, may relate to kundalini," Brain/ Mind Bulletin, Vol. 2, No.7, February 21, 1977; pp. 1-2.) reports on the convulsion-like phenomenon called kundalini. At the Max Planck Institute in Germany, subjects reported "electrical sensations, tingling, inner lights, even convulsions usually followed over a period of time by a moderation of 'symptoms' and apparent alterations in the central nervous system." This article says that the kundalini phenomena typically occurs after a period of meditation in a setting that is non-threatening. This report suggests that while meditating, the individual tries to arrest all thought or cortical activity, thus allowing the evolutionary more primitive areas of the brain to assert itself. The Kindling Model is one of the current interpretations of PTSD. The scientists concluded that those who experienced the kundalini phenomenon were actually reexperiencing primal pain laid down before the brain has completely developed (Toxic Mind Theory).
Soul Loss Checklist
Soul Loss Symptoms: missing soul qualities such as compassion, decisiveness, joy; difficulty concentrating; pervasive fears; feeling less whole, fragmented or empty; addictions; feeling alienated from life, less alive or sleepwalking through life; co-dependence; long-term grief or depression; noticeably different after trauma; dissociation; psychological work without improvement; and being less able to express one's self in areas that used to be easy; difficulty acting on thoughts.
Symptoms of Impending Soul Loss
If any of these symptoms apply, part of your soul is seriously considering leaving right now!
• Feeling unappreciated, even though people express appreciation of you.
• Feeling that no matter what you do, your efforts are thwarted, even though intellectually you see success in your life.
• Feeling like you want to move away from your town, in hopes that things will be better elsewhere. Yet you intellectually realize that things are ok here.
• Sudden onset of depression, accompanied by any or all of the above 3 symptoms.
• Feeling like you want to die, accompanied by any or all of the above 4 symptoms. (This one is a major "red flag" that soul loss is imminent. It is vital to get help at once!)
Signs of Soul Stealing in Progress
• Feeling irresistibly drawn to another person although your rational mind declares there is no compatibility and you just don't want to be with them. This also can be a signal of someone having your soul parts on them long after the actual stealing.
• Feeling drained of energy after intense emotional expression with someone.
• Feeling drained of energy when near the person or when you have thoughts of them.
• These last two are a "big signal" that the soul stealing is going on right now! Focus on your own energy and pull it back away from the other person. Do NOTHING to the other person's energy; you don't want theirs contaminating yours.
Signs of Others’ Soul Parts on You
• You over-react to the other person’s actions or words.
• The other person “pushes your buttons” easily.
• You daydream about arguing with that person.
• Anxiety feelings when others’ soul parts first come to you: like having more energy than you know what to do with. It may also feel like that person is actually there very close to you.
• Feeling an inner contradiction to your values, beliefs, or wanting to take action.
Soul Loss Symptoms: missing soul qualities such as compassion, decisiveness, joy; difficulty concentrating; pervasive fears; feeling less whole, fragmented or empty; addictions; feeling alienated from life, less alive or sleepwalking through life; co-dependence; long-term grief or depression; noticeably different after trauma; dissociation; psychological work without improvement; and being less able to express one's self in areas that used to be easy; difficulty acting on thoughts.
Symptoms of Impending Soul Loss
If any of these symptoms apply, part of your soul is seriously considering leaving right now!
• Feeling unappreciated, even though people express appreciation of you.
• Feeling that no matter what you do, your efforts are thwarted, even though intellectually you see success in your life.
• Feeling like you want to move away from your town, in hopes that things will be better elsewhere. Yet you intellectually realize that things are ok here.
• Sudden onset of depression, accompanied by any or all of the above 3 symptoms.
• Feeling like you want to die, accompanied by any or all of the above 4 symptoms. (This one is a major "red flag" that soul loss is imminent. It is vital to get help at once!)
Signs of Soul Stealing in Progress
• Feeling irresistibly drawn to another person although your rational mind declares there is no compatibility and you just don't want to be with them. This also can be a signal of someone having your soul parts on them long after the actual stealing.
• Feeling drained of energy after intense emotional expression with someone.
• Feeling drained of energy when near the person or when you have thoughts of them.
• These last two are a "big signal" that the soul stealing is going on right now! Focus on your own energy and pull it back away from the other person. Do NOTHING to the other person's energy; you don't want theirs contaminating yours.
Signs of Others’ Soul Parts on You
• You over-react to the other person’s actions or words.
• The other person “pushes your buttons” easily.
• You daydream about arguing with that person.
• Anxiety feelings when others’ soul parts first come to you: like having more energy than you know what to do with. It may also feel like that person is actually there very close to you.
• Feeling an inner contradiction to your values, beliefs, or wanting to take action.
REFERENCES
Ecker, Joseph, Are Genes Our Destiny? http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-09/si-ag091611.php
Hamer, Dean (2005). The God Gene: How Faith Is Hardwired Into Our Genes. Anchor Books.
Hammerschlag, Carl, Kindling the Spirit: the Point of the Arrow, http://www.realitysandwich.com/chapter_7_point_arrow
Karl L. R. Jansen, MD, PhD, MRCPsych.The Ketamine Model of the Near Death Experience:A Central Role for the NMDA Receptor, http://www.lycaeum.org/leda/docs/9264.shtml?ID=9264
Neuroscience. 2002;113(1):79-87.Kindling induces the mRNA expression of methyl DNA-binding factors in the adult rat hippocampus. Francis J, Jung B, Zhang G, Cheng J, Ho W, Burnham WM, Eubanks JH.
Miller, Iona, Neurotheology, http://neurotheology.50megs.com/
Radin, Dean (2006) Entangled Minds; Simon & Schuster.
Hermes Trismegistus, Johfra Bosschart, 1985
DNA associates with histone proteins to form chromatin.
