Neuroscience and psi

It’s relatively well known that in 1924 the German psychophysiologist Prof. Hans Berger named the electroencephalograph (EEG) and was the first person to use it on humans, thereby identifying some of the different brain waves (e.g., alpha rhythms). What is not so well known is that Berger had switched from studying astronomy to studying psychology in the early 1890’s after he had a near fatal accident during which his sister apparently telepathically knew that he was in danger, and she forced her father to send Berger a telegram to check he was alright. Consequently, Berger developed the EEG to study the electromagnetic signals emitted from the brain that he believed carried the telepathic transmissions between minds.

Continuing with this tradition, the oldest continuous running organisation established to scientifically study the mind (predating any psychology bodies still in existence), the Society for Psychical Research, a body dedicated to paranormal research, is this month holding a lecture day on psi and the brain. Lectures, among several, include one on near-death psi experiences in the absence of any brain activity by Dr. Peter Fenwick, and another on the speculated psychedelic neurochemistry of psi by Dr. David Luke (yes me again). Should be a good day out.

10am – 5pm Saturday, April 25th

PSI AND BRAIN

Chair: Prof. Bernard Carr

Speakers: Dr. Peter Fenwick, Adrian Ryan, Dr. David Luke, Dr. Ian Baker and Robert Charman

What are the implications of psi for the relationship between mind and brain? Can some psychic interactions be explained by or associated with particular brain processes? If so, what physical or chemical effects on the brain are likely to trigger or accompany such interactions and what is the relationship between the brains of the people interacting? What sort of psi experiences would seem to transcend a brain-based explanation altogether?

In this Study Day, five leading experts will address these questions, placing particular emphasis on geomagnetic and neurochemical effects, EEG correlations during psychic healing and ESP experiments, and the apparent independence of the brain of near-death experiences. The meeting will end with a general discussion with audience participation.

St Philip's Church, Earls Court Rd, London W8, 10am-5pm.
Cost: Members £30 / Non-Members £35. / Students, Over 60s or Unwaged: £2 discount.
Tea, coffee and biscuits will be served, but bring your own lunch.
Advance booking is recommended, as space is limited (Tel/Fax: 0207 9378984)

A New Science of Life

Last week saw another great evening of ranting and decanting at the Old Gloucester Street Salon, sipping wine amidst stunning artwork and listening to Paul Devereux lead us down some very tangible spiritual paths on his beautifully illustrated talk about "Shamanic Landscapes".

This month, Tuesday 31st March, at the October Gallery we have one of the greatest lateral thinking scientists of our time, Dr. Rupert Sheldrake, coming to talk to us about "Morphic Resonance and the Habits of Nature." Rupert will be giving us some fresh insights from the updated reissue of his fascinating yet shocking book "A New Science of Life", which when it was first published in the early '80s it received a review from the senior editor of the leading science journal, Nature, under the title "A book for burning?", clearly indicating an open-minded and scientifically objective reaction to new ideas.

The editor in question, John Maddox, later commented that Sheldrake was a scientific heretic as much as Galileo was a religious heretic for the pope, thereby rather absurdly condemning his own dogmatism. But Sheldrake's approach to his own rather radical ideas about the organisation of life and the location of memory is scientific and Sheldrake has been extremely vocal about trying to get scientists to test his claims, but like those who refused to look into Galileo's telescope, Sheldrake's radical hypotheses have been tested by merely a few scientists other than himself. Ex research fellow at the Royal Society, the bastion of establishment science, Rupert's most recent attempts to verify his theories have adopted a particularly parapsychological methodology and he has published numerous positive findings on his experiments into household psychic abilities such as telephone telepathy and the sense of being glared at. A definite treat.

October Gallery, 24 Old Gloucester Street, London, WC1N 3AL (Tel: 44 (0)20 7831 1618). Please RSVP as space is very limited, email: rentals AT octobergallery.co.uk Entry £7 /£5 Concessions, Arrive 6pm for a 6:30pm Start - Wine available

A New Science of Life: Morphic Resssonance and the Habits of Nature

According to Rupert Sheldrake's hypothesis of formative causation, all self-organizing systems, including crystals, animals and societies contain an inherent memory, given by a process called morphic resonance from previous similar systems. All human beings draw upon a collective human memory, and in turn contribute to it. Even individual memory depends on morphic resonance rather than on physical memory traces stored within the brain. This radical hypothesis implies that the so-called laws of nature are more like habits, and evolution, like human life, depends on an interplay between habit and creativity.

“Hofmann’s alive!” – LSD Chemist talks from beyond

Not content with having lived to the ripe old age of 102 before he died last year, the inventor of LSD, Swiss chemist Dr. Albert Hofmann, has reportedly announced that he is still going strong in the after life. I’ve been studying the paranormal effects of psychedelics for quite some time, but this is probably the biggest claim yet to be made for the astonishing capabilities of LSD. According to an article posted on a mediumistic circle's blog, psychedelic explorer Lucius Werthmueller travelled 400km to a séance to try and communicate with Dr. Hofmann around about the time of the late chemist’s birthday. Lucias was one of the organisers of the two recent World Psychedelic Forum conferences, which attracted over 2,000 scientific psychedelic researchers, therapists and other delegates to Basel, Switzerland for the event, and he had been a friend of Dr. Hofmann for 25 years.

During the séance it appeared as though no contact was going to be made and that Werthmueller would leave empty handed but, on the contrary, after hearing two loud raps Lucias found a wax object had “somehow softly” been placed into his hand. Inspecting the object (what is known as an “apport” in psychical research) it was found to contain a thimble with a small paper note inside on which was inscribed, “Lucius, look and beware of this wonderful nature. It lives. I live. Albert.”

As can be seen from the short video of the event, Werthmueller announced his astonishment at the message and indicated that that was just the kind of thing that Albert would write. Throughout his very long life, Dr. Hofmann (as highlighted in a new bulletin devoted to psychedelics and ecology) had always been a serious lover of nature, had had a mystical experience of nature as a child, and had been quite vocal on humanity’s ecological imperatives (so certainly the information supposedly provided by Albert was not unknown to anyone who cared to represent him… I hasten to add wearing my sceptical hat). Perhaps more impressively, the text appeared to be written in Albert’s hand and was even signed with a signature closely resembling Dr.Hofmann’s own, but perhaps only an expert graphologist can comment any further on this.

Watching the video of the séance group opening the apport I was surprised at how early the opener managed to identify a thimble inside it, whilst it was still mostly obscured, but it should be said that neither was this “sitter group” unfamiliar with the appearance of such cryptic objects at their meetings, so it may have been easily identified due to its familiarity. What is clear is that fraud cannot be ruled out, nor yet proved, and the case remains a very curious anecdote. Having lived to 102, invented LSD, discovered the chemical structure of psilocybin and psilocin (the active ingredients in certain “magic mushrooms”) and invented and discovered numerous other useful chemical compounds, perhaps Albert Hofmann is now capable of some really quite astonishing feats. I wouldn’t rule it out either. One thing is for sure, Hofmann had long had an interest in the paranormal in relation to psychedelic substances.

A very similar case occurred, but perhaps one that is more convincing because of its accidental nature, shortly after the death of the psychedelic researcher Dr. Walter Pahnke. Best known for his infamous Good Friday experiment that practically proved that psychedelics do give rise to genuine, meaningful and long lasting mystical experiences, Pahnke had managed to obtain a PhD, an MD, a psychiatry residency, and a Masters in Divinity, ALL from Harvard, before dying in a scuba diving accident at the tender age of 40. Less well known, Pahnke had also attempted psychic experiments with participants on LSD but was unsuccessful.

During an LSD psychotherapy session with pioneering therapist Dr. Stan Grof, the late Pahnke’s wife had an apparent encounter with the spirit of Walter Pahnke and he told her that he had a book located in a particular place in their attic that he wished her to retrieve and give back to a friend of his. Quite amazingly, after the LSD therapy session Pahnke’s wife located the lost book, of course, and returned it to the late doctor’s friend. Somehow, as an anecdote of psychedelic spirits apparently communicating from beyond, I find this account rather more feasible than the Hofmann one (…if only he had given us the chemical formula to a new wonder drug instead of a postcard message…), but we’re only likely to find out the absolute truth when we all have our own permanent paranormal experience at the end of this life. Happy travels.

Photograph: Dean Chamberlain - www.deanchamberlain.com

Thanks to Andreas for the link

Zombie neuroimaging: High-tech phrenology?

Having a conversation with a professor of social psychology the other day concerning the two recent papers about voodoo neuroscience (voodoo neuroscience & snake oil), I was told something like, “At its best neuroimaging can tell us something interesting things about human psychology and the brain, but at its worst its nothing more than high-tech phrenology. I think the best thing it could do however, would be to locate the part of the brain that makes neuroscientists die-hard reductionists and then have it surgically removed”. Interesting food for thought, but only if you like the taste of brains! Material reductionists, however, would have us all believe that we are deluded zombies devoid of any free will and real consciousness anyway, so perhaps they would be happy with brains on the menu after all? For anyone taking offence, remember science is a method not a belief.

Psychogeography of the archaic revival?

This month, Tuesday 24th February, at the October Gallery we are lucky enough to have Paul Devereux come and speak about "Shamanic Landscapes" in a beautifully illustrated talk. Paul has authored oodles of great books, most recently "Mind Before Matter: Visions of a New Science of Consciousness" and a reissue of "The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia", and he has been one of the most active people in the field for many years chipping away at the bejeweled coalface of Earth Mysteries research.

October Gallery, 24 Old Gloucester Street, London, WC1N 3AL (Tel: 44 (0)20 7831 1618). Please RSVP as space is very limited, email: rentals AT octobergallery.co.uk Entry £7 /£5 Concessions, Arrive 6pm for a 6:30pm Start - Wine available

Shamanic Landscapes

Did the ancient American Indian soul leave its mark on the land? In this profusely illustrated presentation, Paul Devereux will argue that it did by exploring a range of sacred geographies scattered through the Americas. From the Nazca lines to many other "lines", from the spirit paths of the Kogi Indians to the giant ground drawings of California and Arizona, to the vision quest places of the old shamans, to the strange "place where God sits" in Canada. And more. A unique travelogue that traces an interior journey.

Paul Devereux's main areas of interest are archaeo-acoustics (study of sound at ancient places), ancient and traditional lifeways, the anthropology and archaeology of consciousness, sacred sites and landscapes, general consciousness studies including psi phenomena, unusual geophysical events, and what are loosely termed 'earth mysteries'. This is work he has been involved with at a 'front line' level for almost four decades. Paul has published oodles of books, most recently The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia, and Mind Before Matter: Visions of a New Science of Consciousness.

Image: Paul Devereux

Inner paths to outer space

In collaboration with Dr. Slawek Wojtowicz, Dr. Luis Eduardo Luna, and Dr. Ede Frecska; Dr.Rick Strassman's new book Inner Paths to Outer Space is the natural sequel to his first book, DMT: The Spirit Molecule, in which Strassman documented his extraordinary medical research administering the potent endogenous psychedelic neurochemical, dimethyltryptamine (DMT), to human volunteers. After receiving intravenous injections of DMT, Strassman’s participants reported a range of exceptional phenomena from entity encounters and alien abduction-like experiences to near-death like experiences. Inner Paths considers the DMT-induced entity encounters and alien abduction-like experiences from Strassman’s research in further depth, particularly in the contexts of quantum physics, science fiction and shamanism, proposing that access to alien worlds in outer space occurs in the inner space of the psyche. A full review of the book appears in the latest issue of the Journal of Scientific Exploration.

Voodoo - Hoochie choochie and the creative spirit

On the topic of Voodoo, there's a salty-looking exhibition just started in London last week entitled Voodoo: Hoochie choochie and the creative spirit. It's on until April, so mooch your vévé feet down to Regent Street...

The exhibition features those artists, writers and musicians who acknowledge the need to reach a heightened or 'altered state' in order to create their work. We look at the mystery of the creative act; not the inexplicable 'spark', aka inspiration, but the fire; the non-doing before the doing, the summoning up of elemental spirits from within, or without, during the preparation of some visual or musical work, some theory or idea. This welling-up or 'possession', this 'fever in the heart of man', this spirit, this spell, might sometimes be referred to as Voodoo.

Image by Leah Gordon

Voodoo Neuroscience

Following up on an older post on the pseudoscientific appeal of neuroscience (Brain imaging: Old snake oil in new bottles?) an article due for publication in Perspectives on Psychological Science demonstrates how numerous brain imaging researchers have been fudging the books to show very strong relationships between personality correlates and specific-brain region activity. Given the already enormous complexity of the cortex, etc. and the intractable difficulty mapping the mind to the brain, it doesn’t help matters when social neuroscientists and the like just conveniently report only the most significant relationships in their studies and ignore the huge bin full of unrelated data they’ve collected.

Such selective reporting, which appears to be rife in social neuroscience according to this new research by Harold Pashler and his team at MIT and the University of California, violates principles of probability and grossly distorts what can be understood about neuropsychology, thereby painting a far brighter and clearer image of personality in the brain than the genuinely muddy picture we really have. Honing in on particular correlations is all well and good in voodoo, which works based on acausal associative principles, but in science this kind of misreporting is just mumbo jumbo. Perhaps neuroscience isn't actually any more scientific than magic, but at least voodoo sticks to its principles!

Thanks to the BPS Research Digest Blog...

Do you do Voodoo?

They are beloved by prestigious journals and the popular press, but many recent social neuroscience studies are profoundly flawed, according to a devastating critique - Voodoo Correlations in Social Neuroscience - in press at Perspectives on Psychological Science (PDF).

The studies in question have tended to claim astonishingly high correlations between localised areas of brain activity and specific psychological measures. For example, in 2003, Naomi Eisenberger at the University of California and her colleagues published a paper purporting to show that levels of self-reported rejection correlated at r=.88 (1.0 would be a perfect correlation) with levels of activity in the anterior cingulate cortex.

According to Hal Pashler and his band of methodological whistle-blowers, if Eisenberg's study and others like it were accurate, this "would be a milestone in understanding of brain-behaviour linkages, full of promise for potential diagnostic and therapeutic spin-offs." Unfortunately, Pashler's group argue that the findings from many of these recent studies are virtually meaningless. (Read more…)

Death, and the God of a thousand eyes

Following up on the sold-out lecture on "shamanism through the ages" that was given by Pablo Friedlander at the October Gallery at the end of November, the series of lectures on Ecology, Cosmos and Consciousness we are organising continues this year, every last Tuesday of the month. Next up on 27th January is Dr. David Luke (yeah, I had to take the slot to get things started) who will be giving a talk entitled "Death, and the God of a thousand eyes". I´ll be there, obviously.

October Gallery, 24 Old Gloucester Street, London, WC1N 3AL (Tel: 44 (0)20 7831 1618). Please RSVP as space is very limited, email: rentals AT octobergallery.co.uk
Entry £7 /£5 Concessions, Arrive 6pm for a 6:30pm Start - Wine available

This talk discusses both the scientific and the mystical understanding of people's experiences of visionary encounters with discarnate beings. In all times and places people have had profoundly real experiences of deities, demons, angels, elves, aliens, and ghosts. Sometimes these occur when a person is in altered state – dreaming, on drugs, or is near death. The connection between the altered state and the 'visitation' is explored in a vivid illustrated talk, which takes a personal tour through folklore, mythology, neurochemistry, magic, shamanism, the Luciferian witch cult, brain anatomy, Tibetan demonology, the pineal gland, art, the Reg Veda, psychoactive toads and a cauldron full of other odd ingredients. A lively slide lecture format followed by discussion.

Dr. David Luke lectures in psychology at several London universities and is a writer and researcher with a special interest in parapsychology and altered states of consciousness. He has studied paranormal phenomena and techniques of consciousness alteration from South America to India, from the perspective of scientists, shamans and Shivaites. He lives life on the edge, of Hackney.

Thanks to Alex Grey for the image

Can liberty caps liberate remote memories?

Well much like the myth of Santa Claus being based upon the shamanic use of the psychedelic mushrooms, Christmas has generously provided us with the announcement of the first official UK research project into the use of psychedelic mushrooms with humans since prohibition. After a long hiatus of about 40 years, official human research with psychedelics is about to resume in the UK following a collaboration between a leading London research institute (presently undisclosed to deter negative media) and the Beckley Foundation of Oxford, a leading drug policy think tank and foundation for the research of consciousness and its altered states.

Certain types of magic mushrooms such as Psilocybe semilanceata (known as the 'liberty cap'), in which the chemical psilocybin is found, grow naturally in the UK, one of the country’s few indigenous psychoactive plants. Yet the consumption of dried mushrooms in the UK has been illegal for decades and, tying up a loophole in the law, the picking and consumption of fresh psilocybin-containing mushrooms was made illegal in 2005.

Resuming the scientific psychedelic research that was stopped by prohibition virtually the world over in the late 1960s, the Beckley Foundation (logo pictured above) has initiated a research project at a leading London academic institution into the potentially beneficial effects of psilocybin on psychophysiology and consciousness.

The project is entitled “A study investigating changes in blood flow and remote memory access brought about by psilocybin” and aims to investigate the reported effects that psilocybin has in helping people access forgotten memories, which, along with the profound mystical experiences that can be occasioned with psilocybin may have great potential in helping people in psychotherapy, particularly for resolving trauma-related anxiety disorders, such as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

In their Christmas newsletter the Beckley Foundation wrote “This study will investigate, with the latest brain imaging technology, both the changes in cerebral blood flow brought about by psilocybin and how psilocybin affects regional activation and emotional responses. In so doing, this study will help inform the psychotherapeutic applications for this fascinating and important compound.”

Santa rides 'high' on (mushroom) clouds

At Christmas time it is always worthwhile pondering the origins of certain myths, such as our dear old philanthropic friend Santa Claus. Over the years similarities have been made between Santa’s antics and the activities of Siberian shamans, who consume the red and white-spotted psychedelic mushroom, Amanita muscaria, for 'magical' purposes.

For instance it is known that reindeer eat the mushroom and that eating the flesh or even drinking the urine (the liver transforms the mushrooms’ ibotenic acid into the even more psychoactive muscimol) of such ‘flying’ reindeer can give rise to 'profound' changes in consciousness. So not only do the reindeer fly, but with their help so can the Siberian shaman. One of the roles of the shaman is to bring back wisdom and healing from the other side (the underworld or the upperworld), and these can be considered as 'gifts' for the health of the community. So why does Santa wear that silly red and white outfit, and why is he helped by elves? Surely there can’t be anything shamanic about old Santa,... can there?

more!

Walking between the worlds: Anthropology and parapsychology

Beautifully weaving together all the various tales of parapsychology, anthropology, archaeology, altered states, belief, magic and culture that thread this blog together like the tails of the snakes in the mudusa's hair, the Society for the Anthropology of Consciousness is next year bringing together all my favourite stories for its annual conference.

Set in the idyllic setting of the entrance to Columbia Gorge in Portland, Oregon, the theme for April's conference of 'Bridging Nature and Human Nature' mingles ecopsychology with parapsychology, anthropology with folklore, mythology with dreaming, psychedelics with species-connectedness, and a wealth of other healthy confluences all into one happy pot. Still accepting submitted papers until January 9th, the meeting runs from April 1-5th and looks set to be unique. I certainly hope to go, so I hope to see you there.

Topics include (See flyer):

1. The History and Future of Ecopsychology
2. Bateson, Postmodernism and Shamanism
3. Entheogens and the Legacy of Albert Hofmann
4. Cross-Cultural Inquiries of Eco-Dreaming and Eco-Anthropology
5. Mind/body Approaches to Biomedicine and Medical Anthropology
6. Psi and Species-Connectedness
7. Mythology, Folklore
8. Poetry and Ecocriticism
9. Landscapes of Consciousness and Paleolithic Cave Art
10. Ethnomethodology.

The beyond within: Ketamine and the near-death experience (NDE)

Seems it's psychedelic season in London after all, and all with a nice parapsychological twist. Next month at my favourite London boookshop, Treadwells, Dr. Ornellla Corazza will be giving a talk on her PhD research on ketamine and near-death experiences. I won't be there, unfortunately, because I'll be in Ecuador doing my own parapsychopharmacological research, but I was lucky enough to catch a similar talk by Ornella back at the beginning of last year, which I wrote a review of for the Paranormal Review.

10 December 2008 (Wednesday)
Near Death Experiences
Exploring the Mind-Body Connection
Ornella Corazza (SOAS)
£5.00 in advance
7.15 for 7.30 start

In this illustrated slide lecture, Dr Ornella Corazza will share the fruits of her groundbreaking research on Near-Death Experiences (NDEs). Along with the reports and studies of NDEs, she refers to accounts of sessions with the powerful dissociative drug, ketamine, and draws from contemporary Japanese philosophies of embodiment to argue against the traditional "survivalist" interpretation of NDEs and offers us a new perspective on what human life is and also what it can be.

Ornella Corazza, PhD, is a NDE researcher at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London. In 2004-5 she was a member of the 21st Century Centre of Excellence Program on the Construction of Death and Life at the University of Tokyo. She teaches on the Lampeter MA on The Body: Eastern and Western Perspectives. Academic publications include Remember (2006), on ritual practices in North-East Italy. Her latest is Near-Death Experiences: Exploring the Mind-Body Connection (2008). She lives and works in London.

Shamanism through the ages

Suddenly Tuesday evenings in London don't look so dull. Following on from the Goldsmiths College lecture on Psychoactive plants and psychic people this coming Tuesday, a group of us have begun organising a series of public lectures on ecology, consciousness and the cosmos to be hosted at the amazing October Gallery in Bloomsbury, London. The first of many evenings begins with a lecture by South American ayahuascero Pablo Friedlander on the following Tuesday (25th November) entitled From Ancient Eleusis to Modern Ecstasy: Shamanism Through the Ages.

October Gallery, 24 Old Gloucester Street, London, WC1N 3AL (Tel: 44 (0)20 7831 1618). Please RSVP as space is very limited, email: rentals AT octobergallery.co.uk
Entry £7/ £5 Concessions, Arrive 6pm for a 6:30pm Start - Wine available

Pablo's talk will consist of a brief and deep analysis of a mysterious evolution: from shamanic practices to the rise of the first philosophical schools. Beginning with the symbolisms of shamanism in prehistoric times, a process of sophistication is followed that leads from the visionary art of caves in different continents to the theories about nature in archaic Greece. This comparative study between ancient European beliefs and contemporary shamanic practices in the Americas’ focuses on the relationship between magical plants, cosmological chants, iconography and insights. The constants and changes in the cultivation of mystical trances through key moments of history serve to explain what the Ecstatic Wisdom is and what it means.

Psychoactive plants and psychic people

Well, after warming up my ranting reflexes at the Day of the Dead extravaganza I now feel up for a bit more "whanging on" about my pet subject - psychedelics and the paranormal. So I will be giving a public lecture this coming Tuesday 18th November for the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit at Goldsmiths College, University of London, entitled Psychoactive Plants and Psychic People: Does Psilocybin really cause Psi? - which, as a title, is my best work of excessive alliteration yet. The talk takes us on a journey trough archaeology, history, anthropology, ethnobotany, comparative theology, psychiatry, psychotherapy, neurochemistry, psychopharmacology, and, of course, parapsychology. Anyone left standing at the end is invited for drinks (the non-psychedelic drug type - just alcohol) round the pub afterwards.