Category Archives: mind

BOOK REVIEW: The Way of the Shaman by Michael Harner

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The Way of the ShamanThe Way of the Shaman by Michael Harner
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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From tripping on ayuhuasca in Peru to sucking the evil spirits out of patients, Harner offers an overview of shamanic methods and practices. While it would seem like such an undertaking would be a thick tome given the wide variety of cultures in which Shaman are a fixture, Harner suggest that there is a remarkable similarity of methods used by these “medicine men” be they in the Americas, Central Asia, or the South Pacific. Of course, at a tight level of granularity there are differences, and Harner gives examples of such differences here and there – usually using examples of the Shamanic practices he has studied in South and Central America. However, this book is more the high altitude over pass of the landscape.

There are seven chapters. The first couple of chapters both set up the book and hook the reader with a detailed discussion of Harner’s ayuhuasca — and other mind / mood altering substance – experience. It should be pointed out that not all Shaman use psychedelics and Harner describes in detail alternative approaches to achieve altered states of conscious that involve a combination of drumming and meditative practices.

Chapter three discusses altered states of consciousness, and what Harner calls the “Shamanic State of Consciousness” (SSC) which is the altered state that is pursued by medicine men in their practice. Chapter four describes the concept of power animals and the role that they have in health and illness. (i.e. from the Shaman’s view, an illness might be seen as the result of lacking such a “spirit animal.”) The final three chapters discuss practices such as how the Shaman can acquire a power animal for the patient or how he / she might extract a malevolent influence.

I found an interesting corner being turned in this book. In the opening chapters it reads much like an anthropologist’s scholarly account. Even talking about tripping on psychedelic substances, it’s all with the grounded feel of a scientific mind. However, in the latter half of the book, it reads as though Harner truly believes that the altered state of consciousness is actually a sort of parallel dimension with an intrinsic reality unto itself. I don’t know whether this is a tactic to feather it in for skeptical readers or if it reflects Harner’s own internal journey. (It’s definitely a hard line to walk when writing a book that one hopes to be read by both scientific rational skeptics and religious true believers.) At any rate, the book gets a bit wilder as it goes along. In the beginning, the reader might think the book a discussion of how a powerful placebo effect is achieved, but by the latter chapters it seems one is considering how malevolent spirits can be trapped or extracted from a patient.

As for ancillary material, there are line-drawn illustrations, annotations, a bibliography, and two appendices. The first appendix is about drumming and gives details about what kind of drums and rattles the would-be Shaman should seek. (Drumming plays a major role in achieving the proper state of mind.) The second is a detailed description of a game played by the Flathead Indians. I should note that I read the 3rd edition of this book. The original was published in 1980.

I found the book intriguing as one interested in how people of various cultures achieve altered states of consciousness, how they experience such states, and why they pursue them in the first place. I’d recommend it for a reader who is curious about Shamanic practices – even one who, like me, is a complete neophyte to the subject.

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BOOK REVIEW: Taoist Yoga & Chi Kung by Eric Yudelove

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Taoist Yoga and Chi Kung- For good health,better sex,and longer life.Taoist Yoga and Chi Kung- For good health,better sex,and longer life. by Eric Yudelove
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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This book was originally released under the title: “100 Days to Better Health, Good Sex & Long Life.” It offers a 14 week qi gong practice that proposes to improve health, sex life, and longevity. It’s presented as a step-by-step explanation of the practice aimed at those who intend to carry out the practice—as opposed to those who are looking for a more general explanation or overview.

The book offers a systematic presentation of the 14 week / 100 day practice. It’s divided into two parts. The first is a short explanation of Taoist concepts as they pertain to health building practices, and particular emphasis is given to the concepts of chi (energy / breath), jing (body), and shen (mind.) That emphasis is valuable as each of the chapters (i.e. the description of each week’s practice) is outlined according to these three concepts. So, each week there is a new breath practice, new bodily practices, and a new meditation or visualization practice. That said, these practices build on each other—i.e. starting with very basic activities and either adding to them or shifting to more complex variations.

The sections on breath and mind are fairly straight forward and mostly involve one practice each per week. Those practices become quite complex over the course of the book, but it’s one practice per week. This is in contrast to the middle section that has three or four subsections of activities per week. The middle section on Jing, or body, includes subsections on making sounds, self-massage, “sexual kung fu” (exercises intended to tone the reproductive system and prevent chi “leakage”), and the movement exercises that one might most closely associate with qi gong (chi kung.)

The book has many graphics in the form of line drawings used to clarify anatomy or how one is to visualize the practices. There is a glossary to help explain both Chinese terms and terminology in English that is specific to qi gong. There is also a two page bibliography that includes many works by one of Yudelove’s teachers, Mantak Chia, but also including works by individuals from other lineages and systems.

I have practiced through week eight. One may find the parts of the practice vary in their usefulness, but there doesn’t seem to be any harmful practices and there are many from which one will benefit. I’d recommend the book if one is looking for practices—as opposed to background. The explanations are systematic and the overall practice is well-organized. It’s not the kind of book that is much of a pleasure to read for reading’s sake. Much of the book is lists and bullet points of step-by-step explanation.

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BOOK REVIEW: The Psychobiotic Revolution by Scott C. Anderson, et. al.

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The Psychobiotic Revolution: Mood, Food, and the New Science of the Gut-Brain ConnectionThe Psychobiotic Revolution: Mood, Food, and the New Science of the Gut-Brain Connection by Scott C. Anderson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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For centuries there have been cases in which a change in diet –often accidental– led to relief from a mental illness. However, given the sporadic nature of such effects and the complete lack of understanding of microbes, the enteric nervous system (i.e. the gut’s own “brain” that communicates with — but is also autonomous of — our “first” brain,) and the complexity the symbiotic relationships involved, these anecdotal cases had limited influence on the state of medicine. However, recent years have seen an explosion of understanding in this domain. This has resulted in a vast number of books being written on the role of microbes in the gut for overall health, the role that changing diet can have on changing our microbiota, and related topics such as how the overuse of antibiotics can have a deleterious effect on health by tossing out the microbial baby with the bath water. This book touches on all those topics (and more) as it explores the role of our bacterial hangers-on on our mental health.

The book consists of nine chapters. The chapters are organized so as to first present one with the necessary background to understand how changes to one’s gut microbiota can improve one’s health —particularly one’s mental health (though many of the mental illnesses influenced by microbiota are linked to physical ailments)— before moving on to the specifics of what microbes have been shown to have a given effect and what diseases can be influenced by consumption of probiotics.

The first five chapters give the reader an introduction to the topic and an overview of information one needs to know to understand the later chapters. Chapter three gives one an overview of the changing profile of one’s microbiota over the course of one’s life. Particular emphasis is given to one’s youth and to the transfer of bacteria to infants. [Readers may be aware of the problem that c-section births result in a failure of babies to receive a dose of beneficial microbes imparted by passage through the vaginal canal.] Chapter four takes one on a quick ride through one’s alimentary canal from mouth to rectum, with particular emphasis on questions such as how bacteria survive the stomach’s acid bath, and which parts of the digestive system contain which microbes (and to what effect.)

The last four chapters dig deeper into the specifics. These chapters look at specific probiotics, how one can get them into one’s system, and what science has found out about probiotics and psychobiotics (like probiotics, but specifically ones that influence mood and mental states) effects on specific ailments. Chapter eight, which deals with major diseases, does cover physical ailments as well as mental ones because – as mentioned— these afflictions often go hand-in-hand. The last chapter (Ch. 9) looks at where this body of knowledge is going. It delves into practices that are presently well-established, such as fecal matter transplants, but also into challenging works-in-progress such as attempts to develop narrower spectrum antibiotics so that we can get the life-saving benefits of these medications without their crippling side-effects.

The book has many graphics, as one would expect from a work that investigates such a complex scientific topic. I can’t really speak to the quality of the graphics as the review copy I read didn’t have completed graphics. However, the subjects of the graphics seemed appropriate and well-placed. The book also has a glossary, annotations, and a further reading section to assist the reader in the study of this subject.

I found this book to be informative and engaging, and would highly recommend it for anyone interested in the role of microbiota on mental health. The text was well-organized and readable. Given the scientific nature of the material, it’s easy for such a book to become ponderous, but the authors made attempts to keep the tone light and the presentation non-intimidating.

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BOOK REVIEW: Cave of Tigers by John Daido Loori

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Cave of Tigers: The Living Zen Practice of Dharma Combat (Dharma Communications)Cave of Tigers: The Living Zen Practice of Dharma Combat by John Daido Loori
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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This book is a collection of transcripts of what are called dharma encounters, dokusan, or dharma combat. It’s a practice in Zen Buddhism involving a verbal interaction between student and teacher. Each of the twenty chapters takes a teaching of some past master of Zen (mostly Master Dogen), and explores it through these student-teacher interactions. The chapters begin with an introduction to the teaching at hand, conclude with a wrap up paragraph, and in between are an assortment of transcripts.

There’s a clear pro and con. Because information is presented in an unconventional format, there’s potential to gain insights that one might not otherwise. The students are trying to interact with the teacher in an unorthodox and outside-the-box manner. That’s part of the training. So as they relate the teachings to events in their own life or their own unique way of viewing the world, one gains access to those off angles of insight.

On the other hand, reading the transcripts can be repetitive as the teacher is trying to make sure that all students have some common understanding. It’s also not clear whether there was much selectivity in picking the encounters that were presented. Some readers might enjoy that it’s like being there at the monastery, but others might find reading the book a little bit like watching sausage making. While there are clever and insightful students, there are also individuals who seem to just be trying to get there turn over with, who appear to have no interest in the topic at hand, or who think some random action like a war-whoop will be evaluated as a deep and meaningful insight on the subject by the teacher (spoiler alert: it almost never is.) One should also not assume factual correctness in the student’s commentaries (e.g. at one point one of the students incorrectly identifies Vishnu as “the destroyer,” but [in Hindu mythology] Vishnu is the preserver / maintainer and it’s Shiva who is the destroyer. This error is of little consequence to the point being made, but the reader should be aware that the priority was to be faithful in conveying the transcripts rather than to accurately convey information.)

The organization seems sound enough. The book begins with rudimentary topics such as zazen (sitting meditation) and progresses into more philosophical and esoteric topics. As mentioned, there are twenty chapters, each built around a specific teaching and with the same organization. The only ancillary material besides the front matter (a Forward and an “Invitation to Dharma Encounter”) is a glossary (which is a worthy addition given the wide-ranging terminology in English, Japanese, Chinese, and Sanskrit, as well as the many names of individuals and documents that may be unfamiliar to the uninitiated.)

I enjoyed this book. As I say, it has its positives and negatives, but—on the whole—it was insightful and interesting. I’d recommend it for anyone interested in Zen, particularly anyone who intends to spend time at a monastery or meditation center.

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5 Essential TED Talks on Consciousness

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5.) Anil Seth: Your Brain Hallucinates Your Conscious Reality




4.) David Chalmers: How Do You Explain consciousness?





3.) Max Tegmark: Consciousness is a Mathematical Pattern





2.) Antonio Damasio: The Quest to Understand Consciousness





1.) Oliver Sacks: What Hallucination Reveals about Our Minds

BOOK REVIEW: Trying Not to Try by Edward Slingerland

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Trying Not to Try: The Art of Effortlessness and the Power of SpontaneityTrying Not to Try: The Art of Effortlessness and the Power of Spontaneity by Edward Slingerland
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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This book’s paradoxical title is perfect for its paradoxical subject matter, which is famously expressed in such quotes as, “When nothing is done, nothing is left undone” [ver. 48 of the Tao Te Ching.]  Slingerland lays down the ancient Chinese wisdom of wu-wei and de, but provides something novel by putting it in the context of the positive psychology and neuroscience of today. Wu-wei literally means “no doing,” but can be more meaningfully defined as “effortless action.” De (pronounced “duh”) is a charisma seen in people who have mastered the effortlessness and spontaneity of wu-wei.

While the book is built around the varied approaches of four Chinese philosophers—two Confucians (i.e. Confucius and Mencius) and two Taoists (i.e. Laozi and Zhuangzi)—the author relates this philosophy to the present-day thinking found in Daniel Kahneman’s “Thinking, Fast and Slow,” Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s conception of Flow, and the neuroscience of the subconscious.

The book consists of eight chapters. The introduction and the first two chapters outline the concepts of wu-wei and de using both Chinese and Western stories and examples to help clarify these arcane ideas and put them in the context of the social and spiritual spheres. Chapter 1 offers an extensive discussion of the operation of the brain as it relates to the discussion of effortlessness and spontaneity.

Chapters three through six make up the core of the book, and present the approach and thinking of Confucius, Laozi, Mencius, and Zhuangzi, respectively. This “boy-girl-boy-girl” Confucian-Taoist organization offers the reader sound insight into the varied approaches and allows one to see the evolution of thinking. Confucius gets the first cut, but his approach to effortlessness and spontaneity involves a great deal of effort and planning. It might seem that Laozi’s approach–which does away with effort and planning–might be more apropos, but it’s hard to imagine anything of benefit actually being spawned by such a loosy-goosy approach. The more nuanced approaches of Mencius and Zhuangzi offer additional insight, but do not eliminate the paradox. It’s this paradox that’s the subject of chapter seven.

The final chapter examines what the reader can take away–given that the paradox of wu-wei seems inescapable. The author proposes that, paradox or not, there is value in pursuit of effortlessness and spontaneity, and progress can be made by understanding and accepting said paradox.

The book has no graphics, but is annotated and has a bibliography–as well as an appendix table that summarizes the various approaches to wu-wei.

I enjoyed this book and found it fascinating. It’s highly readable, having humor and a wide range of examples from ancient myths to pop culture. The book offers a great value-added by considering the relevance of modern science and psychology to this ancient concept. I’d highly recommend this for individuals interested in Chinese / Eastern philosophy, as well as anyone hoping to bring a little more effortlessness and spontaneity into his or her life.

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BOOK REVIEW: Modern Buddhism: Vol. 1 (Sutra) by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso

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Modern Buddhism: The Path of Compassion and Wisdom - Volume 1 SutraModern Buddhism: The Path of Compassion and Wisdom – Volume 1 Sutra by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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This is the first book in a three-volume overview of Buddhism that is available for free (or for the minimum Kindle book price on Amazon.) The book is written by a Tibetan Buddhist scholar-monk, and, therefore, emphasizes the Mahayana approach and specifically that of the Gelug school. (I’m a neophyte, but I don’t think this book goes into so much detail as to be controversial among Tibetan Mahayana Buddhists, but if you are thinking you’ll learn about, say, Zen or Theravadan Vipassana, not so much.) The theme of this volume is an overview of the Limram, which is a sutra describing the path to enlightenment.

The book is divided into four sections. The first offers a broad overview of Buddhism with particular discussion of the Kadam Lamrim (the specific sutra discussed) and Kadampas (which is the name for an individual who pursues practice of the Kadam Lamrim.) The other three sections describe the information needed by an initiate, middling practitioners, and advanced practitioners, respectively.

The section on persons of initial scope (i.e. initiates) emphasizes the need to recognize the limited scope of a human life, to reflect upon one’s imminent death, and to consider the importance of avoiding lower rebirth.

The section on persons of middling scope echoes the four noble truths. They are discussed by way of the four questions: 1.) What one should know? 2.) What one should abandon? 3.) What one should practice? And 4.) What one should attain? In essence, it suggests one understand suffering, the path to is cessation, and that one follow that path.

The largest section, by far, is the portion on individuals of great scope. It is divided into four parts. The first part describes the need to revise one’s approach to love by taking oneself out of the center and practicing loving-compassion for those that one doesn’t know. The second subsection outlines the six perfections (giving, moral discipline, patience, effort, concentration, and wisdom) and the importance of each. The third section is about emptiness and truth. The final section is a brief description of the Lamrim practice.

There are a small number of line drawn illustrations of important figures in the tradition. There are no notations, citations, or ancillary material.

I found this book to offer a concise overview of the subject of Buddhism—specifically from the perspective of the Gelug tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. While there are some historical stories, such as those drawn from the life of Milarepa, the book is not designed to be entertaining reading. It’s a straightforward transmission of knowledge. In that regard it does a fine job, it’s clear and concise.

I’d recommend this book for one who’s interested Tibetan Buddhism, but one should be aware that it’s not a nonsectarian overview of Buddhism as the title might suggest to a reader.

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BOOK REVIEW: The Men Who Stare at Goats by Jon Ronson

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The Men Who Stare at GoatsThe Men Who Stare at Goats by Jon Ronson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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Ronson investigates the US military intelligence community’s forays into extrasensory perception (ESP) and mind control. Those who’ve seen the movie loosely based on this book will be aware of the quirky-humorous tone it takes. (If the title wasn’t enough to convey that the author was aiming for quirky humor.) Ronson’s style, favoring punchy simple sentences, offers a kind of deadpan delivery that supports the tone of the book.

That said, the book also has a sad edge as it can be seen as a commentary on military officers who came back from the war in Vietnam damaged and grasping at straws as to how to prevent history from repeating itself. It’s as if what these men experienced made some eager to believe because they so wanted to believe they could win with the mind and avoid the carnage of war.

While the book’s sixteen chapters are not divided by the author, they can be roughly divided into three parts. The first is the pursuit of ESP starting in the late 1970’s. This includes remote viewing and the titular psychokinesis (i.e. starring goats to death.)

The middle section is the resurgence of these esoteric approaches in the late 90’s and, especially, after 9-11 (also speaking to how dire blows to the psyche lead to wild approaches.) Much of this section is about mind control rather than ESP. One may remember the news story of the “I Love You, You Love Me” song from Barney [i.e. the purple dinosaur] being played over and over again to break terror suspects. The question remaining unanswered is whether there was anything else going on besides torture by Barney song (i.e. subliminal messages or sonic / ultrasonic frequencies [as used in non-lethal weapon technology.])

The latter section deals with the famous case of a scientist who jumped from a hotel room window to his death. It was later admitted that the scientist had been the unwitting victim of hallucinogen experimentation as part of the famed MKUltra project, and his death was written off as a trip gone bad. Ronson presents the story of the scientist’s son, a man who firmly believes that the story copped to was neither the full story nor the true story.

This book is interesting and entertaining, despite the fact that many of the questions that Ronson sets out to answer remain unanswered and probably always will. While the author got several key people to talk to him, the projects discussed are highly classified and the possibility of disinformation is ever-present.

Ronson manages to walk a fine line throughout the book. He presents all this quirky and bizarre activity in a way that neither comes across as mocking nor even particularly skeptical. (His punchy delivery does hint at this intention on occasion.) He lets the reader do the mocking and be the skeptic. At times he comes across as a believer. That is, while many of the happenings of the book reflect bat-shit crazy behavior / decisions, he suggests that all but the most hardened skeptics would believe that some of the people involved had inexplicable gifts.

I’d recommend this book. If you’re interested in government sponsored esoteric activities like psi and mind control and related scandals / conspiracies, you’ll find it fascinating. On the other hand, even if you’re not, it’s still an entertaining read that provides a sort of commentary on the effects of war on the psyche.

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BOOK REVIEW: Supernormal by Dean Radin

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Supernormal: Science, Yoga and the Evidence for Extraordinary Psychic AbilitiesSupernormal: Science, Yoga and the Evidence for Extraordinary Psychic Abilities by Dean Radin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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With this controversial book, Dean Radin presents the scientific evidence for an array of psychic powers, but he frames the discussion in terms of yogic siddhis. “Siddhi” is a Sanskrit term for an ability that isn’t seen among the general population–at least not reliably so– and for the most part these “accomplishments” correspond to the categories discussed in parapsychology (i.e. telepathy, precognition, psychokinesis, and clairvoyance.) [Note: As mentioned, this is a controversial book. I will attempt to provide as unbiased a review as possible. I am generally skeptical, but don’t believe in poo-pooing the study of subjects because they offend my skeptical sensibilities. Furthermore, I try to keep an open mind because: 1.) there is no scientific consensus about what consciousness is or how it works, 2.) quantum biology is a subject in its infancy and we may yet learn there is more quantum “spookiness” going on in the brain than we think. 3.) for all I know we are in an simulation and then it’s all a matter of programming.]

The yogic emphasis doesn’t change the book much from the pop psych literature review of parapsychology studies it would otherwise be, except to necessitate background information on yoga and siddhis. However, this emphasis may or may not have opened up a huge additional readership. Outside of a fringe, siddhis aren’t much in vogue among yoga practitioners these days. Among modern day yogis and yoginis, there are some who believe in them and some who think they’re throwbacks to an era of superstition, malnutrition, and wishful thinking. However, even among the former, siddhis are generally considered a distraction. The advice of most of the great yogis has been to not get lost in the pursuit of such powers because chasing siddhis can derail one from one’s ultimate objective (e.g. liberation.) Still, if even a small fraction of yoga practitioners take an interest, that’s a fairly large readership.

So what exactly is the controversy? Obviously, there are many divergent demographics with differing views on the topic. For hardcore skeptics, parapsychology is right up there with alien abduction, bigfoot /yeti sightings, and the anatomy of the Loch Ness monster with respect to being a legitimate topic for scientific study. On the other hand, there are believers who are offended by the mere notion of studying such phenomena with science, and who say such investigations are an assault on their beliefs.

But that’s not a very interesting controversy—i.e. there are some people who won’t believe in such abilities no matter what the evidence, and others who will believe in them no matter what science has to say. So let’s chop off the hardcore skeptics and hardcore believers and ask what the controversy is as it pertains to those of us who consider evidence when drawing conclusions.

The root of the controversy can be stated rather quickly and clearly. Here it is: the effect size is small but statistically significant. What does that mean? Say this study asks a subject to determine which of five randomly selected shapes has been chosen using nothing but his / her mind. Using pure guessing, one would expect to be right 20% (i.e. 1/5th) of the time. If a person happened to get 32% right in a given trial, that means nothing because small samples don’t give one a convergence towards a mean value. (i.e. Intuitively, you know that if you flip a coin 10 times and get 7 heads, it doesn’t necessarily mean anything. If you repeat that 10-flip set 10,000 times, and still get 70% heads, then you probably have a trick coin or something else odd is going on.) So the issue is that even when experimenters repeat the experiment over and over again such that the average value should converge on 20%, it doesn’t. It stays at, say, 30% (exact effects vary but it’s on this order.)

At this point the reader might be thinking of all the factors that could result in this effect (i.e. cheating [insider or outsider], subconscious observation of facial expressions, random selection that is biased, etc.) Well, so have the scientists. In any study, one wants to account for alternative explanations to the utmost. Over the years, researchers like Radin have put all manner of protections in place from quantum random number generators to booths with extreme sound-proofing and Faraday cages (prevents radio signals from transiting.) Still they get this small positive effect that can’t be explained by alternative explanations.

There is also the issue of the filing drawer problem, which Radin devotes considerable space to discussing. It’s the idea that when drawing conclusions from many similar studies, one must accept that there may be many unpublished studies that sit in file drawers because they didn’t produced negative results. These filed / unpublished studies could negate the outcome of the body of studies of that nature. While this remains an open criticism, there is mathematics for determining how many negative studies would have to be turned up to make the results insignificant. Radin argues that the numbers calculated strain credulity.

So this “small but statistically significant effect” is generally agreed upon by all, excepting conspiracy theorists. Now we get to the controversy, which is how to explain this effect. Skeptics run the gamut from hot-blooded haters who claim that it’s all just a scam perpetrated by hoaxers with tenure, to more diplomatic challengers who provide thoughtful, plausible, and non-nefarious explanations for what they believe are false results. Said objections include file drawer problems, statistical “crud factor” (an observed effect in which large sample size studies can show a significant correlations between any two random variables—i.e. everything is correlated with everything else to some degree), and outlier effects.

The latter is a particularly revealing controversy. Say your study results in this 30% instead of 20% effect, and there’s one subject in the study who (over many trials) got the shape right 80% of the time. If you’re a skeptic, you call that an outlier and you want to cut it out of the study because it may be causing part, most, or all of the effect you see. Your assumption is that that this outlier could be anything from a data entry error to an outright cheater, but it’s obviously not a gifted psychic. If you’re a believer, not only do you want to keep that result, you want to find that person and study them to find out if the result was a one-time fluke, or if you have some rare, gifted person.

The book is arranged into three parts. The first part offers background on yoga and siddhis. The second part is the heart of the book and it presents an overview of results from studies of precognition, telepathy, psychokinesis (both of animate and inanimate objects), clairvoyance, and the effect of meditation on these abilities (which also shows a small positive effect, i.e. the general population outdoes probability by a little bit and experienced meditators outperform the general population by a little bit.) The last section is just a couple chapters about the future of parapsychology.

I found this book to be interesting and thought-provoking. Radin comes across as a reasonable investigator who is willing to accept that there is a lot of duplicity going on out in the world, but yet when one uses the methods of science one obtains results that would be generally accepted as successful across the social sciences. At times he does go on anti-skeptic rants. On the other hand, one can imagine his frustration in dealing with individuals unwilling to pin down how much higher the bar must be for parapsychology results over results in more mainstream topics. I think Radin’s greatest mistake was in discussing levitation. Besides at a quantum level, the effects of gravity are well-understood and non-negotiable. While our lack of understanding of consciousness leaves wiggle room to at least consider some unusual happenings, levitation seems a non-starter. Fortunately, as it hasn’t been studied, Radin just presents a couple historical anecdotes and moves on (while—to be fair–acknowledging the fundamental risk in relying on anecdotes.)

I’d recommend this book. I can’t say it swayed my belief on the topic, which tends skeptical, but it did inform my confusion. (It should be pointed out that not all these abilities are equally reviled by science. Precognition is the most fundamentally opposed because it seems to violate the fundamental cause and effect nature of the universe at our scale and larger [as opposed to the quantum level were all sorts of weird happenings transpire.]) I do agree with Radin that there shouldn’t be taboos in science in which scientists are afraid to study a subject of interest because the prevailing notion is that it probably doesn’t have merit. If there weren’t scientists with the cojones to study “crazy stuff” we’d no doubt be far behind our current understanding of the world.

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5 Bits of Wisdom from The Matrix Movies

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5.) Wisdom: Choice is not as it seems.

Quote: No, you’ve already made the choice. Now you have to understand it.
Said by the Oracle to Neo in “The Matrix Reloaded” as they discuss a dream in which he sees Trinity falling.

Interpretation: Studies in neuroscience have repeatedly validated the notion that by the time we think we’re making a decision at a conscious level, we’ve already made it on a subconscious level. While many suggest this means that the verdict is in and free will is completely illusory, another way of looking at it is that one must understand one’s decisions in order to begin to regain the rudder on one’s life.



4.) Wisdom: Courage elevates: or, if you don’t run, he won’t chase you.

Quote: He’s beginning to believe.
Said by Morpheus to Trinity in explanation of why Neo isn’t running from Agent Smith in the subway.

Interpretation: My mother used to say, “If you don’t run, he won’t chase you” with respect to being chased by my older brother. It seemed like insane advice at the time; the alternative to being chased being beaten down. However, now I can see that even taking a butt-whooping elevates one’s spirit over engaging in prey behavior.



3.) Wisdom: Rationality is a thin veneer.

Quotes: Beneath our poised appearance we are completely out of control. & It is remarkable how similar the pattern of love is to the pattern of insanity.
Said by the Merovingian to Morpheus, Trinity, and Neo.

Interpretation: While one might like to dismiss the Merovingian’s comments as the cynicism of a hedonist, the undeniable fact is that we have animal biology and it influences us more than we pretend.



2.) Wisdom: The world contains more Cyphers than not.

Quote: Ignorance is bliss.
Said by Cypher to Agent Smith as he plots his subversion in order to be put back into the Matrix.

Interpretation: Most people are happy with their illusions, rely on them as coping mechanisms, and will respond unfavorably to attempts to strip them way. The illusion in question may not be so much that the world is completely fake as much as biases such as the self-serving bias (i.e. people attribute successes to their inherent awesomeness but blame failures on external sources.)




1.) Wisdom: There are limits to being cerebral.

Quotes: Don’t think you are, know you are. & There’s a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.
Both are said by Morpheus to Neo. The former quote is delivered in the sparring program when Neo isn’t performing up to his potential. The latter is said after Neo & Trinity rescue Morpheus and Neo tries to tell Morpheus what the Oracle revealed, but Morpheus quiets him with said words.

Interpretation: I hope I haven’t muddled this bit of wisdom by choosing quotes in which Morpheus uses the word “know” in two different ways. In the first quote, Morpheus contrasts knowing with thinking, and he means that Neo must not treat it as an intellectual exercise, but rather feel its inherent truth deep down. In the second quote, he contrasts knowing with doing, and in this case “knowing” is the cerebral / thinking activity in comparison to doing (i.e. “walking the path.”) However, the gist is the same, you must approach some things–to use the Oracle’s words–balls to bones.