Pendants - anybody wears and want to share experiences?

S

schriss

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I've been reading some impressive testimonials (for example regarding Harmonic Protector), but I'm curious what any of you people have to say since some or most of what I read could be just advertising agenda :D
 
In order, I have owned the Gold/Beryllium pendant, Qlink the latest version and the Mega Chi Pendant.

Among the 3 the Q-link is the one that I really noticed a difference, it calms me down like I was on valium when I first started wearing it, I now wear the Mega Chi Pendant inside with the Q-link outside.

I've made my own pendants as well one in a capsule and one where you can see the gems inside, I dowsed it using the VC pendelum and the capsule seems it emanate the stronger energies and the round pendant seem to be more refined.

Others I've considered:

MegaChi Far-infrared pendant
Bioelectric shield
Vesica pendant
Higher Power power pendant
Chakra Shem
Chion pendant
FSO proton
Croft Harmonic Protector
Crystal Catalyst Pendants
Hooten RZ medallion
 
moonwalker said:
Among the 3 the Q-link is the one that I really noticed a difference, it calms me down like I was on valium when I first started wearing it, I now wear the Mega Chi Pendant inside with the Q-link outside.
Personally, if I need to calm down, I breath deeply three times and count to ten, and it works for me perfectly every time. Taking a walk also works. :)
 
I've researched some of these myself, but not any of the recent ones, and even built some myself. The ones I examined did not have any fancy names, but from what I've seen on the Internet they work on the same principles. Basically they combine metals (plates and coiled wires), crystals and sometimes (but not always) a small power source, such as a battery.

The devices generate a very small electric field moderated by the crystalline dielectrics, IMO. When a battery is lacking the field is induced through the body's field. What the device transfers is not energy, but a pattern induced onto the human field. The feedback energy may be too small to be measured by conventional instruments, but it is compatible to the microvoltages transferred through the nerves, and one can learn to sense it. It is, however, very difficult to identify the subtleties of the patterns involved as they are complex and minute, acting IMO like embedded messages in a sound track or under white noise.

So one must ask what is the quality of the pattern? It may not do anything, or it may act as a very subtle influence. I'm just hypothesizing here, but esoterically the principle is similar to that of talismans, and most of these devices are programmed or conditioned by the awareness of whoever makes these things (charged or "blessed", in other words by someone claiming to be "qualified"). One might say the patterns are calibrated by the information field of the person constructing and promoting the device.

I've examined and psychometrically sensed traditional talismans constructed by people considered at least "pure of heart", and in the best of cases these devices have a limited range of "energy" (or whatever it is that is sensed) that sets a barrier to one's natural expression, similar to a weak mood-altering chemical, and that barrier is defined by the unconscious biases of the one influencing/constructing the talisman. And that is in the most well-meaning of cases.

These things have no other purpose but to induce a mood, and that mood is defined by the one making the "device". How do you know they have your best interests at heart, and how do you know they are not biased even if apparently sincere? They might have hang-ups that color the energy. They might, for example, confuse relaxation with dumbing, or healing with the covering of symptoms. I would especially be wary of devices sold to protect from "aliens" or "lizards".

This is like wearing someone else's ritual. I do not think it is the field intensity that generates the effect, but the field pattern, which is an information pattern compatible to the neurological output of the person "charging" the device.

And there is the issue of simple compatibility between the biologically carried "information field" of the one charging the device (even if the charging simply entails putting it together with a certain intent), and the one using it. One solution is to learn to make your own devices, if you are willing to make the effort.

A better solution is to simply modulate your own information field or awareness matrix through inner development instead of relying on possibly dubious artifical enhancers, which (if anything) are more likely to pollute than to cleanse.
 
Found some gold ones :D
Sensei's Harmonic Protector: "Gold, Ruby, Sapphire , and Emeralds. Intense protection and heart, 3rd eye and crown, and strong heart healer."
DSCF1284.JPG


http://www.warriormatrix.com/viewtopic.php?p=6499

Anyway, I will get one of those since It's too much hassle to build one myself, besides, If I build that - it will be useless. I'm not energy sensitive at all. Can't even meditate - too much thoughts, I also keep having conversations with myself, NOT in my native language which is strange.
Also, testimonials I read indeed in most cases mention elevated mood effect so that pretty sums up of what I can expect, if anything at all.

Any chances such device like Harmonic Protector could really block harmful frequencies from cell towers to name just one?
 
The harmonic protector pendant makes primary use of 'orgonite'.
You can get some background information on orgonite from the following website:
http://www.orgonite.info

PS. Nothing replaces or substitutes hard work on the path to enlightenment, orgonite apparel can only help protect against harmful EM radiation and converts harmful chi /DOR to beneficial life giving chi/POR.

I ordered an orgonite pendant, and i'm still in the process of evaluation. (not a hefty investment, only 5 british pounds).

Cheers
 
From the orgonite site:

Following in their footsteps, thousands of Ph.D.-level researchers from both sides of the Iron Curtain spanning multiple generations have continued Kozyrev and Reich's pioneering work, slowly forcing mainstream Western science to finally, "officially recognize" the concept of a universal, unseen energy medium they call "dark matter," "vacuum flux" or "zero-point energy," depending on who you ask. It is commonly understood among orgonite enthusiasts that these are all essentially describing the same thing, which Reich called "orgone".
I wish someone would substantiate the link between "orgone energy", and exotic concepts like "dark matter". From what I see these orgone generator constructs are nothing but capacitors, with dielectric insulators. Instead of metal plates, conductors with a high surface to volume ratio seem to be used. Perhaps this results in an electric field that is a product of complex charge distribution, and this may be compatible and supportive of the interactions between valence charges of biological molecules, hence facilitating life processes.

In my opinion, it might be more realistic to seek more obvious interpretations for the orgone effect before jumping to conclusions regarding the more exotic possibilities. Another association is with "torsion energy". There is an interesting link to a site describing this effect:

http://www.amasci.com/freenrg/tors/tors3.html

Again, however, I don't see why every exotic hypothesis, based on observation or pure theory, should be associated with the vague term of "etheric energy", which may just as easily be the result of the biological response to complex (life-imitating or life-coherent) charge distributions. I think the temptation to make something more exotic than it is detracts from the possibility of really understanding a phenomena that has been observed too many times to be considered false.
 
You guys really need to gather some history on this stuff before you dive in. Let me reccommend a couple of books to start with: Frances Yates "Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition" and, by the same author: "The Occult Philosophy of the Elizabethan Age" and Garth Fowden's "The Egyptian Hermes" and then use these as jumping off points for some of the primary works (translations of the original Hermetic documents or, if you can read them in the original, go for it) on which all these kinds of things - spells, amulets, etc - are based).

As the C's told me about the pool incident posted in the other thread:

Q: (L) Okay, during the period of time I was getting the
hassle from the metaphysical church group, my pool was
green. Was this symbolic of the attack I was under?

A: Yes but you left yourself open by association and buying
too many concepts without careful examination.

Q: (L) Do you mean that, if, at that time, I had refused to
acknowledge that any harm could come to me, that that
would have made it impossible for any harm?

A: Close. But investigate before buying and practicing
in future okay?

Q: (L) Investigate what? Ideas?

A: Yes. And concepts and especially practices.

Q: (L) The ideas of candle burning, salt, sage, shamanistic
rituals and so forth? Is all this useless?

A: Maybe.

Q: (L) Is sage not useful?

A: You are learning; remember when we say "good no ritual"?

Q: (L) In other words, your knowledge and your strength which
comes from your knowledge and knowing is the point and the
protection?

A: Precisely. This is extremely important.

Q: (L) Alexandra David Neel quoted a lama who said we must
beware of the children of our own minds as well as the
children of the minds of others, such as thought forms
perhaps created by higher negative beings. If we do not
acknowledge that such things exist, are we then subject to
being devoured by them?

A: Ritual drains directly to Lizard beings.

Q: (L) Even our saying of the Lord's prayer?

A: It is okay to pray. Why do you think organized religion
is obsessed with rituals?

Q: (L) Is the same thing true of shamanistic practices and so
forth?

A: Exactly.

Q: (L) What occurred to make my pool clear up?

A: You restored your own energy.

Q: (L) And it had nothing to do with rituals?

A: Correct. In spite of rituals but you were lucky could
have gone the other way.
I took their advice... I don't do anything unless I know as much about it as is available to me... and sometimes that means reading long, boring, technical books and scientific papers.

But that brings me to another point: how it is that KNOWLEDGE protects.

Pierre LaPlace said:
We must regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future.

Consider an intelligence which, at any instant, could have a knowledge of all forces controlling nature together with the momentary conditions of all the entities of which nature consists. If this intelligence were powerful enough to submit all this data to analysis it would be able to embrace in a single formula the movements of the largest bodies in the universe and those of the lightest atoms; for it, nothing would be uncertain; the future and the past would be equally present to its eyes.
Now just think about that for a moment and put it together with the following series of notes that I hand out during my alchemy lectures:

There is a striking similarity between life and thought. Just as there are more potential life forms than the planet can hold, there are more potential ideas than our minds can possibly absorb and remember.

Just as evolutionary natural selection may generate change by choosing from among the many potential forms of life, so may thought be able to generate evolutionary change by choosing among many potential thoughts.

Men ought to know that from the brain, and from the brain only, arise our pleasures, joys, laughter and jests, as well as our sorrows, pains, griefs and tears. Through it, in particular, we think, see, hear, and distinguish the ugly from the beautiful, the bad from the good, the pleasant from the unpleasant. Attributed to Hippocrates, fifth century, BC.
When medical research designs a drug to eliminate depression, the drug alters the physical state of the brain, including the responsiveness of its synaptic connections. The knowledge of exactly what drugs actually do in the brain is somewhat incomplete.

Learning is modeling. We do not precisely and unerringly inscribe information into our memory like a computer. Instead, we create dynamic models that place facts in a context; models that continually evolve in response to experience.

Learning to drive a car is usually confusing and frightening. But eventually, the student becomes familiar with the vehicle, the actions necessary to control the vehicle, and the presence of other vehicles on the road. A synaptic MODEL has been created in the brain to handle the new learning experiences. This model can be constantly updated by new experiences and insights.

There is evidence that the more powerful or significant an experience, the stronger and more numerous are the synaptic connections and the better we remember it.

Traumatic emotional experiences leave vivid and persistent memories. Such memories are "burned" into the brain.

Creating synaptic models can stimulate emotions as well - generally the pain of struggle followed by the pleasure of the insights gained.

The flow of understanding as you take in signals from your environment, reflects the activity of the synaptic code.

A series of electrical and chemical signals is being sent from your sense organs through a network of neurons, through its synaptic circuits, which continually correlate the signals, to the frontal lobes of the brains which coordinates your comprehension and produces a "likeness" of what you are experiencing through your sensorium.

Once the "likeness" - or concept - or what you are perceiving is understood, the frontal lobes send signals about how to respond.

Synapses wire together the neurons in the brain. The secret of the brain's functioning resides in the pattern of synaptic wiring between neurons and the way this pattern dynamically changes during learning and memory.

Neurons process information received from synapses and then use other synapses to pass on messages to other neurons. Synapses connect the billions of neurons in the brain into circuits that transmit both electrical and chemical messages.

The synaptic connections between neurons can strengthen or weaken as the brain learns and remembers.

The Synapse (Greek, syn: union, association) is the point of connection between two neurons or between a neuron and a muscle or gland. Electrochemical communication between neurons takes place at these junctions.

The synapse consists of three elements:
1) the presynaptic membrane which is formed by the terminal button of an axon,
2) the postsynaptic membrane which is composed of a segment of dendrite or cell body, and
3) the space between these two structures which is called the synaptic cleft. Some cells in the nervous system have as many as two hundred thousand synaptic connections.

In 1871, Ramon y Cajal (a Spanish neuroscientist and artist) described the structure of the neuron which he illuminated using a silver staining process. His poetic description of this cell type included:

"The aristocrat among the structures of the body, with its giant arms stretched out like tentacles of an octopus to the provinces on the frontier of the outside world, to watch for constant ambushes of physical and chemical forces."
With this work, which won him the Nobel Prize in 1906, he discovered that neurons are separated from one another by narrow gaps.

Sir Charles Scott Sherrington, an experimental physiologist, produced in 1906 a brilliant speculation based solely on behavioral data, that a specialized type of communication occurs at these synapses:

"It is as if the Milky Way entered upon some cosmic dance. Swiftly the brain becomes an enchanted loom where millions of flashing shuttles weave a dissolving pattern, always a meaningful pattern though never an abiding one; a shifting harmony of subpatterns."
A neuron carries an electrical signal at speeds of up to 400 feet per second. At the end of the axon of the neuron, there are tiny bulbs called synaptic terminals. The terminals do not actually touch the dendrites. There is a gap called the synaptic cleft. The electrical signal does not JUMP to the dendrites, but stimulates the release of neurotransmitters into the synaptic cleft. There are about two dozen known neurotransmitters, including serotonin, dopamine, acetylcholine, etc. There are other chemicals that affect the potency of the primary neurotransmitter.

After being stimulated by the electrical signal, neurotransmitters contained in the tiny sacs in the synaptic terminal, burst through the terminal membrane and flood across the synaptic cleft. They are then detected by microscopic protein structures called receptors which then trigger electrical and chemical reactions in the receiving neuron.

The elaborate structure of the electrochemical synapse permits complex networks to be set up among neurons. The messages that can be sent through these networks are amazingly varied. Messages can vary depending on which neurotransmitter is used, how much is released into the synaptic cleft, how long it remains in the cleft, and what kind of receptors are detecting it.

As the brain interacts with its environment, synaptic circuits combine to form synaptic maps of the world perceived by the senses. These maps describe small segments of that world - shape, color, movement - and these maps are scattered throughout the brain. As the brain's synaptic network evolves, beginning at birth - or even before - these maps process information simultaneously and in parallel.

A leading neuroscience text tells us:

The most striking feature of the organization of sensory systems is that the inputs from the peripheral receptor sheet ( the body surface, the cochlea, the retina_ are systematically mapped onto structures of the brain. These maps do not correspond point for point with the size and shape of the periphery but reflect the relative importance to perception of a particular part of the receptive sheet. Thus, the tips of our fingers have a large representation in the brain, whereas the skin on our back has a small representation.
(Principles of Neural Science)
Hormone Communication

Any biological communication system, whether the nervous system or the endocrine system, must be able to detect a stimulus, generate a signal, process the signal, and respond.

The single celled E. Coli orients itself so that it moves toward favorable regions and away from potential threats. It does this by constantly sampling its environment with thousands of receptor molecules that are built into its cell membrane.

Once a receptor is stimulated by something in the environment, a signaling chemical is released. This signaling chemical is called a "second messenger," and it diffuses in the cell fluid to the portions of the cell that process information.

This processing is a kind of voting. All the messages from all the receptors are continuously being summed up: the second messengers that signal favorable environmental conditions are netted against those signaling less favorable or even dangerous chemicals. Using this kind of arithmetic, the E. Coli remains aware of the nature of its environment, and sends electrical signals to its flagella directing them to adjust their orientation so as to propel it toward the most favorable part of its environment, which may contain a source of food.

E. coli contain the rudiments of to different communication systems: chemical and electrical. Most plants use just a variation of the chemical system.

Using neurons and synapses, animals added an electrical system to supplement chemical communication.

Hormones are specialized chemical that when released by certain cells, diffuse through the organism's body fluids, influencing the behavior of other cells.

The target cells must have a way of detecting these chemicals. Some hormones, such as small-molecule steroids can ooze through the cell's outer membrane and interact directly with its internal machinery. Other hormones are made of larger molecules and cannot penetrate the cell membrane. They must be recognized by the cell through and elaborate set of receptors embedded in the membrane, which act as chemically activated switches.

Receptors protrude out of the cell membrane and have special areas that are shaped so that specific hormone molecules fit into them, just as a key fits into a lock. When a hormone molecule triggers a receptor, the receptor changes shape, activating some additional process in the cell: the receptor may start a chemical reaction in the cell or open a channel in the membrane that lets outside substances into the cell. By activating receptors, hormones can control the cell's internal machinery, even turn specific genes in the cell on and off.

Control through hormones is slow.

Higher living forms continue to use chemicals as the basic communication system for activities such as growth and digestion. Meanwhile, the parallel communication system - the nervous system - connects the speed of electrical impulses to the subtlety of chemicals.

When an animal's nervous system senses danger, for instance, the adrenal glands pour the hormone adrenalin into the blood. Adrenalin turns off nonessential muscles, such as the digestive system, redirects the blood supply to the muscles that control movement. The endocrine system thus prepares the muscles for the rapid action that will be required by the brain as it calculates how best to meet the danger.

Hormones accomplish much of their control through activating and deactivating receptors. In the brain, receptors that are sensitive to the same neurotransmitter may have completely opposite effects on the cell. What is important, therefore, is not so much what neurotransmitter is being used, but exactly how the receptor changes the cell after it is switched on by the transmitter.

The crucial component in the neural network is the neuron's cell membrane. The neuron's cell membrane is like the keyboard of a tiny, sophisticated computer. The receptors are like the keys on a keyboard. Synapses are the hands that reach out from other neurons to type messages on this keyboard of receptors. The fingers on the hands are chemical neurotransmitters which press the keys with infinite subtlety. - like playing a piano.

Just as pressing the keys of a computer keyboard sends signals to the core of the machine for processing, so these chemical fingers send messages that are processed inside the cell. Receptors do not turn on and off like light switches. They constantly flicker by the millions between on and off states. This makes them a particularly sensitive system for amplifying minute fluctuations, including quantum fluctuations.

The neurotransmitter is the first messenger which triggers the receptor, changing the shape of the membrane protein. This change in shape either causes the release of a second messenger substance inside the cell or opens a gate that allows a second messenger to enter the cell. The critical distinction is that the first messenger does not enter the cell; it only activates a receptor, which changes the shape of the membrane protein and causes other chemicals to do work inside the cell. The first messenger sends its message into the cell via the second messenger. Second messenger systems may be highly complex, involving many steps that bring cascades of changes within the cell.

Neuroscience has revealed a large number of neurotransmitters that stimulate receptors on the surface of the cell membrane. Yet there seem to be relatively few second messengers that act within the cell. The same second messenger, however, can have different effects in different cells depending on the precise chemical composition of the cell.

With respect to learning and memory, calcium is the most important second messenger. Evidence is rapidly accumulating that the flow of calcium ions into the neuron serve as the impresario of thought, coordinating the wiring of synapses.

When a synapse releases its neurotransmitter across the synaptic cleft to a target neuron, those neurotransmitter molecules can change the electrical charge of the target neuron's membrane by opening or closing ion channels into the membrane. These electrical changes caused by the release of neurotransmitters at synapses are called synaptic potentials.

When acetylcholine binds to its receptor, the parietal cell's permeability to calcium ions (Ca++) is altered so that the ions move into the cell. The intracellular increase in Ca++ activates the intracellular protein phosphokinases.

The distinction between synaptic potentials and action potentials is crucial to grasping the nature of the synaptic code. Synaptic potentials are the passive currents that flow through the membrane as receptors open ion channels in response to neurotransmitters. Synaptic potentials result from the fact that the cell body and its dendrites are studded with many synaptic connections - often thousands. Many or all of these may be stimulated in a fraction of a second. The response to this stimulation at each postsynaptic site can be either depolarization, making the axon more like to fire, or hyperpolarization, maki8ng it less likely. The neuron is constantly adding up these contradictory signals to see whether the threshold for firing has been reached. This is one of the most basic ways the neuron processes information.

An action potential is generated when the process of netting the positive against the negative synaptic potentials results in a sufficient electrical flow to depolarize the trigger zone, the portion of the membrane at the base of the axon. When the trigger zone's threshold is reached, an electrical impulse is generated from the zone down the axon to the terminal bulbs. This causes the terminals to release packets of neurotransmitter into the synaptic cleft.

The action potential is a form of amplification, somewhat similar to the amplification role played by a transistor in an electrical circuit. The impulse generated by the action potential appears as a spike on an oscilloscope. The amplitude of the spike remains the same all the way down the axon.

The term "action" refers to the fact that the impulse is much stronger than the current of synaptic potentials that fired the impulse at the trigger zone; the action potential is nonlinear. To fire the action potential, the synaptic potentials merely have to reduce the membrane's negative charge from -65 to - 55 millivolts. Once this is accomplished, the explosive influx of sodium ions that constitutes the action potential makes the membrane's charge jump from -55 to +55 in a fraction of a second.

The strength of the synaptic potential is directly related to the number of ion channels opened when molecules of neurotransmitter released by the presynaptic membrane act on specialized postsynaptic membrane sites, and the density of the receptors sensitive to the neurotransmitter that are present at those sites.

Depolarization is usually associated with a change in membrane permeability.

Unlike action potentials, which are always the same strength, the strength (amplitude) of synaptic potentials is not fixed but is increased or decreased by a simple process of addition and subtraction. If synaptic potentials occur near each other, then their combined depolarizing effect is greater than if they are spread out over a large area of the postsynaptic membrane.

The neuron behaves something like an analog computer as it calculates the plusses and minuses of these synaptic potentials.

The greater the strength of the synaptic potentials registered by a neuron, the faster the neuron fires its action potential.

Although the action potentials are all the same strength, their frequency or number of repetitions per second depends on the strength of the synaptic potentials. The stronger the net positive charge generated by the synaptic potentials, the greater the number of action potentials per second. In addition, the longer the excitatory synaptic potentials last, the longer the action potentials will keep firing.


Example:

Child approaches hot stove. He sees the glowing red burner.

If he touches the burner, the pain receptors in the skin respond instantly and generate a strong potential to the underlying nerves which are made up of neurons. This causes the neurons to be strongly depolarized as ion channels open up and allow positively charged ions to flow into the cell. These positive charges reduce the negative electrical charge on the neuron from -65 millivolts to -55 millivolts at the trigger zone of the neuron's axon. This opens up the voltage gated sodium ion channels and sodium comes rushing in as an action potential is propagated down the axon. The great strength of the graded potential translates into the generation of many action potentials per second. This high frequency means that one action potential after another is causing the release of sacs of neurotransmitter at the terminal bulbs that stud the end of the axon.

The result is a LARGE amount of neurotransmitter release onto the dendrites of the next neuron, generating a large synaptic potential. This synaptic potential, in turn, generates a high frequency of action potentials, and the process continues until the message reaches the spinal cord.

In the spinal cord, the message takes two parallel pathways. The first goes to the reflex circuit that causes the child to snatch his hand away. The other goes to the brain for processing.

The photons of light from the glowing stove have transmitted the picture of the glowing coil at almost the same instant as the high frequency of action potentials that indicate pain were transmitted. The duration of these action potentials continues long after the hand has been pulled away. In the brain these two sets of stimuli converge on a common group of target neurons, and these converging synapses release calcium ions into the target neurons.

The calcium begins a biochemical cascade that activates genes in the neurons that establish a link between the image of the hot stove and the sensation of pain. Another piece has been added to the child's synaptic model of his environment.

The growth and retraction of dendrites and dendritic spines have an important role in learning and memory. They appear to be able to process a certain amount of information. Some dendrites are capable of generating mini-action potentials of their own that do not involve the whole neuron.

The brain is different from a digital computer, the circuits of which are either on or off. The action potential has a digital dimension, it is either on or off and its strengthen is always the same. But the brain also has an analog dimension because the number of action potentials fired and the duration of the firing determines the strength and duration of the stimulus. Synaptic potentials are purely analog.

If the brain is a computer, it is a kind of chemical computer with a mixture of digital and analog elements that resembles no computer ever designed by human beings. It engages in a massive amount of parallel processing, with operations going on simultaneously rather than sequentially.

The brain is able to respond to stimuli through learning and remembering. This stored information is used to construct maps of the environment. These maps are interconnected to form models that enable the brain to predict and exert a measure of control over its environment.

The human brain is capable of creating a synaptic network that models the entire universe.

A persons' state of mind is seen as a reflection of the changing electrical and chemical state of the brain.

The marine snail, Aplysia californica has three innate defensive responses that center on its tail, its gill, and its siphon. Each of these is withdrawn if touched.

In the studies that interest us, when the snail's pout is squirted with a stream of water, the snail immediately withdraws its spout and gill. Aplysia associates the stream of water with danger. Yet, after many stimulations and with no danger ever materializing, the snail becomes habituated and fails to withdraw its gill at all.

What happens is: after repeated squirts to the siphon, the synaptic potentials generated by the sensory neurons grow smaller and smaller until they decline below the threshold required to trigger an action potential in the motor axon. The motor axon no longer fires and the gill is not withdrawn.

The calcium ion channels in the synaptic terminals of the sensory neurons had become partially inactivated.

One of the important functions of calcium ions in the synaptic terminal is to promote the chemical reactions necessary for the release of sacs of neurotransmitter. Since the ion channels that normally admit calcium into the terminal were inactivated, little calcium was entering the terminal and thus few sacs of neurotransmitter were being released. This crippled the ability of the sensory neurons to communicate with the motor neurons. The sensory neurons still registered the squirt, but their ability to communicate with the motor neurons by releasing neurotransmitter to produce a synaptic potential was severely limited.

A single training session would habituate Aplysia for several minutes. Four training sessions of ten stimuli each were sufficient to habituate the snail for up to three weeks.

Habituation is an important example of the depression of a synaptic circuit.

Experiments were performed using mild electrical shocks which uncovered a more complex synaptic circuit. When the tail of Aplysia is shocked, the interneurons from the tail begin releasing the neurotransmitter serotonin onto the synaptic terminals of the sensory neurons. The serotonin along with other neurotransmitters as well, through an elaborate biochemical process, has the effect of releasing two important second messengers in the synaptic terminals: cyclic AMP and protein kinase C. These second messengers inactivate an important type of Potassium ion channel that is responsible for getting the cell membrane back to its normal electrical charge after an action potential. Without these channels, the presynaptic membrane of the sensory neuron is slower to recover and the action potential lasts longer. A longer action potential means that voltage gated calcium channels stay open longer, allowing more calcium ions to flow into the synaptic terminal. Since calcium is responsible for releasing sacs of neurotransmitter, the increased flow of calcium stimulates the sensory neuron's synaptic terminal to release more neurotransmitter than usual onto the motor neuron controlling gill withdrawal. This prompt the motor neuron to briskly withdraw the gill. As long as the potassium channels are inactivated, any action potential fired by a sensory neuron is prolonged and amplified - thus the snail has been sensitized.

In short, after shocking Aplysia's tail repeatedly, the sensitized animal swiftly withdraws its gill whenever its tail is touched thereafter. Evan a slight touch that ordinarily would elicit little or no response causes the gill to withdraw.. Aplysia is responding defensively to a hostile environment. Seretonin is the "volume control" making the sensory neurons much more sensitive.

Habituation is caused by the decline in the release of neurotransmitter in the pre-synaptic terminal while sensitization is caused by an increase in transmitter release.

The long term sensitization of Aplysia requires the activation of the genes within the nucleus of the neuron A single session of shocking Aplysia's tail results in sensitization lasting a few minutes. Four or more sessions sensitize the animal from a day to several weeks.

The application of chemical that block the genetic synthesis of proteins prevents long-term sensitization. Aplysia can still be sensitized for short periods of time but seems to quickly forget its fear and return to normal.

In long term sensitization, protein kinase A acts as a messenger to the genes. By turning on certain genes, it begins a sequence of protein transcription via messenger RNA that leads to two specific results. First, more protein kinase A is activated, which means that the potassium channels are shut down for a longer period of time. Second, another set of proteins is produced that stimulates the neuron toe establish more synapses with the sensory neurons.

Snails undergoing many sensitization training sessions have twice as many synapses onto sensory neurons as untrained snails and these synapses produce more neurotransmitter than normal.

In long term habituation, the number of synaptic connections with the sensory neurons shrank by one-third and the remaining synapses became less active.

The brain remembers because its synapses remember.

Short term memory is produced by the strengthening or weakening of synaptic connections. Short term memory becomes long term memory through the activation of the genes. This genetic activity can change the number of synaptic connections.

Our learning and long-term memories are etched into our brain by turning on genes that consolidate short term changes into long-term synaptic networks.

There are two apparently independent mechanisms for synaptic learning, one presynaptic and the other postsynaptic.

The presynaptic mechanism is characterized by increased sensitivity of the synaptic terminals which is, apparently, the result of gene activation.

The other mode consists in increased sensitivity of the postsynaptic neuron and a change in the number of dendrites. Conditioning resembles the sensitization process, but with important differences.

An initial signal primes certain synaptic connections to either increase or decrease the strength of their connections. If a second signal is then sent within the critical interval with the connections are primed, a series of molecular reactions takes place that consolidates the new strength of the synaptic connections. If these two signals continue to occur time after time, in the same order, then further biochemical reactions take place that turn on the genes in the nuclei of the respective neurons and consolidate the learned response into a long-term memory. ... after long term training there were fewer dendrites connected to the synaptic terminals involved in the conditioned learning. The synaptic connections were now focused on the conditioned learning and had eliminated unnecessary dendrites.

The NMDA receptor turns on the neuron's capacity to make connections with other neurons by allowing pulses of calcium ions from the outsider to enter the cell.

Note the central part played by calcium ions in this process. Calcium turns up over and over again in the most important mechanisms of learning and memory.

N-methyl D-aspartate. It is a microscopic channel sensitive to the neurotransmitter glutamate. When the receptor detects glutamate, it tried to open to allow calcium ions to flow into the neuron. Usually, however, the NMDA receptor's channel is blocked by positively charged magnesium ions which are attracted by the negative charge of the inside of the neuron. If synaptic terminals stimulate the neuron's membrane strongly enough, then the voltage of the membrane becomes more positively charged, temporarily repelling the magnesium ions. They pop out of the NMDA receptors channel and the receptor is then stimulated by glutamate.

Alone among the many different kinds of receptors that have so far been identified in the brain, the NMDA receptor requires both an electrical and chemical signal for its channel to open. Thus the NMDA receptor will only be activated when there are intense and highly correlated patterns of signaling going on between neurons.

These are exactly the kinds of correlations that are used to build the associations out of which learning, memory emerge.

The NMDA receptor naturally acts to associate excitatory signals arriving at the same time at the same postsynaptic membrane.

EXAMPLE: Assume that the postsynaptic neuron on which the NMDA receptor is located has come to represent the word "snow" in the brain. Just the sound of the word, not the meaning.

A child is taken out into the snow. The incoming synaptic terminals symbolically represent the qualities wet, white, and cold. When the information channels labeled "white," "wet," and "cold" are stimulated by external stimuli (feeling wet or seeing white), the incoming terminals fire action potentials. To remove the magnesium blockage, at least two of the terminals must fire simultaneously.

The synchronized and sustained firing of the white and cold terminals activated the Q and K glutamate receptors, opening their sodium ion channels and adding a positive charge to the membrane sufficient to repel the magnesium ion from the NMDA receptor channel. Now, glutamate, which is also being released by the white and cold terminals is able to open the NMDA receptor's ion channel which is no longer blocked, allowing a pulse of calcium ions to enter the cell.

This flow of calcium ions triggers a series of biochemical cascades involving protein kinase C and calmodulin that activate the postsynaptic cell's genetic machinery establishing stronger synaptic connections between the snow neuron and the white and cold synaptic terminals. Next time the white and cold terminals signal the snow neuron, the signals will be received much more readily. The MEANING of the word "snow" is being built in the child's mind.

Rats treated with chemicals that block the activity of the NMDA receptor cannot perform the memory phase of certain kinds of maze tests.

Commercially available NMDA-receptor antagonists include ketamine, dextromethorphan, memantine, and amantadine. The opioids methadone, dextropropoxyphene, and ketobemidone are also antagonists at the NMDA receptor.

Both preclinical and recent clinical studies indicate that compounds which reduce transmission at N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors are antidepressant. Moreover, chronic administration of antidepressants to mice alters both the mRNA levels encoding N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor subunits and radioligand binding to these receptors within circumscribed areas of the central nervous system.

Animal experiments have shown that artificially blocking the NMDA receptors action in a young animal will keep the animal's visual system from wiring itself properly. Most mammals, including humans, are born with visual systems that must be "tuned" by activity during the first few days and weeks of life. Visual fields must be sharpened by use during a critical period, or vision never becomes fully functional.

Neuroscientists believe that NMDA receptors are unusually active during this critical period and are crucial to ensure that the correct nerve endings converge on the correct neurons in the visual system.

This raises the possibility that such "wiring plasticity" can be prolonged...

Theories suggest that stabilization of long-term potentiation is characterized by an increased flow of the neurotransmitter glutamate from the synaptic terminal. It is proposed that long-term potentiation first requires the activation of NMDA receptors, but that the maintenance of this state requires that the postsynaptic membrane send a reverse signal back to the synaptic terminal that could begin a presynaptic biochemical cascade that increases the output of glutamate... a likely candidate is nitric oxide.

Biologists have been astounded to discover that molecules of this gas are produced by cells in many parts of the body and are used to send messages to other cells. Nitric oxide molecules rapidly diffuse through the membranes of the cells into the interior. Neurons, too, produce nitric oxide. The calcium influx stimulated by the activation of NMDA receptors seems to switch on the production of the gas in the postsynaptic neuron, which may then diffuse back to the presynaptic neuron in a feedback loop that could strengthen the synaptic connection.

It is genetic engineering and related techniques that are moving us to an era in which evolution will be dominated not by the genes but by the human brain. The revolutionary change, I believe, is part of an even larger revolution in which human beings in this century have uncovered the secrets of matter, life and thought. The brain not only is able to control life, it has also acquired the ability to manipulate matter. And it is beginning to be able to scientifically modify its own intelligence and its emotional states as well."

The quantum code guides the evolution of matter. All things in the universe are built out of inconceivably tiny, indivisible quantities called elementary particles which are glued together into larger structures by the FOUR forces of nature: gravity, electromagnetism, the strong force, and the weak force. These elementary particles and fundamental forces come in discrete units called quanta and combine according to specific rules.

Everything in the universe is ultimately assembled from this quantum alphabet.

The genetic code shapes all life on Earth. It consists of a four-letter alphabet made up of four different kinds of nucleotides. These nucleotides are the structural units that make up the DNA molecule. A word in this alphabet consists of a sequence of three nucleotides and is called a codon. Each codon word stands for one of twenty different amino acids. RNA molecules "READ" these codons and use them to construct proteins which are long chains of amino acids. Proteins are the microscopic machines out of which living things are made.

The synaptic code is the interaction of one class of cells in the brain and nervous system. These cells are called neurons. The connections between neurons are called synapses. These cells have developed a method of electrical and chemical communication. The synaptic code describes how the brain wires and RE-wires itself.

Understanding these codes, we are masters not only of our own evolution, but also of the evolution of all matter, life and thought.

Every cell in your body contains a full genetic blueprint describing both the development of the complex structure of the whole body from a single fertilized egg and the operation of all the specialized cells in that structure to make the adult form function efficiently. In any particular cell, far more than 90 percent of that information is never used. It stays locked up in DNA strands wound tightly into chromosomes inside the nucleus of the cell. Just the small amount of genetic information relevant to the running of that particular cell - how to be a liver cell, or a muscle cell, or whatever it may be - ever gets translated into RNA which is used to control the manufacture of proteins. But every single cell still carries a complete set of chromosomes.

This fact raises a number of complex issues.

From the fertilized egg, after a very few simple divisions of the cell and copying of DNA, different cells begin to develop differently. Even as the embryo's cells are dividing and growing at a rapid rate, they are specializing, preparing for their role in the body - a role that they will play throughout life.

SOMETHING - and it can only be part of the genetic message itself, information obtained from the DNA on the chromosomes and used in response to the IMMEDIATE ENVIRONMENT OF EACH CELL - tells each cell how it must develop, to become muscle, liver, brain or whatever.

This subtle bio-chemical control of the development process is far from being understood.

But there is some understanding of the later processes such as how, after the cells have differentiated and developed into the mature form, they stay differentiated, so that you liver, for example, doesn't suddenly decide that it ought to develop cells characteristic of, say, brain tissue.

The whole business depends on the way parts of the genetic message coded in the chromosomes, and only the RIGHT parts, are translated into RNA and then proteins.

The puzzle is to find out how parts of the genetic code are switched on and off.

Certainly, this issue is important for, say, Cancer research, a disease in which cells stop obeying the part of the genetic blueprint appropriate for their role as par of a multicellular organism, and do start dividing and spreading unchecked.

The theory is that the genes which produce the observed structural characteristics must be controlled by other genes. There are two kinds of control genes. One is a gene which sits next to the structural gene on a particular chromosome, and turns the structural gene on and off. A second controlling element is responsible for determining the RATE at which the first control gene operated, speeding up or slowing down the frequency with which the switch controlling the structural gene was turned on and off.

The interesting thing that was discovered is this: while it is beyond doubt that the switch gene sits next to the structural gene it controls, the second control gene - the regulator - can be located almost anywhere, far away on the same chromosome, or even on a different chromosome entirely. It was then discovered that these elements were not even fixed in a unique location on the chromosome, but can jump from place to place and chromosome to chromosome. The control genes can move to different places, bringing different structural genes under their control and affecting the subsequent development o all the offspring of the cell they inhabit.

EXAMPLE: In the 1950s, a team at the Pasteur Institute in Paris were puzzling over the way E. coli bacteria made the most efficient use of the food resources available to them. E. coli can obtain the carbon atoms they need to maintain the chemistry of life from a variety of sources, but one food which can supply all of their carbon needs is the sugar lactose. Among the genetic material of an E. coli cell, on its single chromosome, there is a sequence of three genes that code for three proteins. One of these is an enzyme called beta-galactosidase, whose job is to chop up lactose into its two components, galactose and glucose, and essential step in the process of breaking down the food into usable pieces.

When E. coli finds itself in an environment where there is a supply of lactose, it needs beta-galactosidase, and plenty of it, in order to make the most of the opportunity. So this gene system must have the potential for rapid production of large quantities of enzyme. But if there is no lactose to be digested, then manufacturing is worse than useless, because it uses up the resources and energy of the cell without providing any benefit.

The fact is, the bacteria only make the enzyme WHEN THEY NEED IT.

In an individual cell of E. coli living in a culture medium where there is no lactose, there are less than ten molecules of beta-galactosidase. But if the same bacterium is transferred to a growth medium containing lactose, then it proliferated and each of the daughter cells in the growing culture is found to carry several thousand copies of the enzyme.

Somehow, the presence of the food triggers the manufacture of the enzyme needed to digest that food.

This is an example of gene control at work.

One of the other two genes in the sequence of three is also involved in lactose digestion, producing an enzyme that concentrates lactose inside the cell. What job the enzyme coded for by the third gene is, is not know, but it is probably related to making use of lactose. Research shows that the three genes work as a group.

Researchers determined that all three genes must be under the control of a fourth gene called the Operator. Under normal conditions, the operator prevented the translation of the three genes alongside it into protein. But the presence of lactose activated the system.

How?

The conclusion was that there must be another gene, somewhere else, which was responsible for regulating the activity of the operator. They called this the regulator and gave the name "operon" to the whole system of regulator, operator, and the set of structural genes controlled by the operator.

The operon system was a theoretical construction with no hard evidence to back it up. It was only in 1966 that researchers at Harvard identified the repressor molecule itself, a protein that binds to the chromosome at the start of the stretch of DNA coding for the three enzymes.

At the start of a sequence of DNA coding for a gene or a set of genes, there is a particular short stretch, called a promoter, which is recognized by the enzyme that manufactures messenger RNA as the start of the message. RNA polymerase can only attach to the DNA and begin to manufacture mRNA at such a site. In the E. coli system, the operator postulated sits between the promoter and the beginning of the sequence of NA that codes for the three enzymes. The operator is not so much an active gene, but another site to which a particular type of molecule can become attached. That molecule is the repressor molecule. It is a protein manufactured in the cell in accordance with the instructions coded for by the repressor gene, which doesn't have to be anywhere near the scene of the action, because the protein molecules it produces have an affinity for the operator site and eagerly bind to it. RNA polymerase can still attach to the promoter site, but when it tries to move on to read the DNA code in the genes alongside and manufacturing RNA, its movement is blocked by a large protein molecule attached to the operator site.

But what happens when there is lactose about and the cell needs those three genes working flat out?

The protein molecule that binds to the operator site may find that site very attractive, but it is even more attracted, in chemical terms, to lactose molecules. When there is lactose about, the protein releases its grip on the chromosome and latches onto a lactose molecule instead. The RNA polymerase has an unobstructed path, and can proceed efficiently about its task of reading DNA and manufacturing mRNA. When all the lactose has gone, a protein molecule with nowhere more attractive to go, re-attaches to the operator site.

Why does a protein molecule find one site more attractive than another to bind to? Because of the interplay of forces, at the molecular level, and its need to seek the lowest energy configuration available. The laws of quantum physics determine the rules of how those chemical forces interact and which state is the lowest possible energy state. The quantum rules are "seek to distribute your electron cloud in a configuration with the lowest possible energy and you will achieve molecular nirvana.

Jumping genes, such as the above described regulators of operators bring us to certain interesting points.

In the early 1960s, it was shown that a virus invading a bacterial cell could insert its genetic message almost anywhere in the bacterial chromosome. It was realized from this that there must exist in the cell the potential to manufacture enzymes that could snip apart the strands of DNA and splice in new chunks in almost any place.

A few years later, changes were noted in E. coli DNA, and these mutations were observed to affect several functions of the E. coli at once. That is to say, a change at one site on the chromosome, apparently influenced other genes nearby. The mutations were recognized as the insertion of bits of genetic material from somewhere else on the chromosome into a new site, regulating the activity of genes that came under the influence of the inserted gene. This was recognition of "Mobile Control Genes."

By the late 1970s, researchers could analyze the sequence of bases on lengthy stretches of DNA as a matter of routine, identifying exactly what the genetic code said; they could manufacture pieces of artificial DNA dozens of bases long. By 1982, they could synthesize a gene for interferon, 514 bases in precise order. They had identified and could use the enzymes that cut DNA, and also those enzymes that stick cut ends of DNA back together with the artificially created gene inserted into the gap.
Now, let me emphasize two things :

The human brain is capable of creating a synaptic network that models the entire universe.

A persons' state of mind is seen as a reflection of the changing electrical and chemical state of the brain.

If you understand this, then you will understand why and how knowledge protects.

Added: the clue is the Hermetic Principle "As Above, so below. Certainly, data added to the system, synapses created, are not the point. The point is APPLICATION.

As the C's have said:

"Knowledge application generates energy, which, in turn, generates light."

Knowledge protects.

and

Life is religion. Life experiences reflect how one interacts with God. Those who are asleep are those of little faith in terms of their interaction with the creation. Some people think that the world exists for them to overcome or ignore or shut out. For those individuals, the worlds will cease. They will become exactly what they give to life. They will become merely a dream in the "past." People who pay strict attention to objective reality right and left, become the reality of the "Future."

Knowledge protects.

and


All there is is lessons. This is one infinite school. There is no other reason for anything to exist. Even inanimate matter learns it is all an "Illusion." Each individual possesses all of creation within their minds. Now, contemplate for a moment. Each soul is all powerful and can create or destroy all existence if know how. You and us and all others are interconnected by our mutual possession of all there is. You may create alternative universes if you wish and dwell within. You are all a duplicate of the universe within which you dwell. Your mind represents all that exists. It is "fun" to see how much you can access. All. Challenges are fun. Where do you think the limit of your mind is?

Q: (L) Well, I guess there is no limit.

A: If there is no limit, then what is the difference between your own mind and everything else? .... And when two things each have absolutely no limits, they are precisely the same thing.

Knowledge protects.

Just as you create synaptic maps of great power by acquiring knowledge, so does your "being" acquire spiritual synaptic systems of protection by application of that knowledge which generates light.
 
I've read that quote many times. The one where Each soul can create or destroy all existence if they know how, and I find it staggering that this is posssible or that I (if I have a soul that is) may be capable of these God like actions. Has anyone else contemplated this?
 
Yes, it is staggering. Puzzling, too.

I remember when I was a boy and had a really high fever, I would get a delirium dream where I felt like this was happening, only I was an ignorant boy, so I blew it, destroyed all existence, then woke up screaming like crazy. Then about five minutes after waking up I was OK again. This happened several times. That responsiblity was the scariest thing I ever experienced. It was like putting a toddler behind the wheel of the biggest car ever!

moonwalker said:
I've read that quote many times. The one where Each soul can create or destroy all existence if they know how, and I find it staggering that this is posssible or that I (if I have a soul that is) may be capable of these God like actions. Has anyone else contemplated this?
 
Just to add my too cents here.

The sense of being staggered by the potentials of the mind is in proportion to the differential between the mind's awareness of itself and its true potential. As the mind discovers its natural coherence with the Universal reflection, new connections allow the truth of its nature to be more naturally accepted.

In other words, the more we grow into the truth of who we are, the more comfortable we become with our own potential. Eventually this allows us to reach a state where we are "eye to eye" with the Universe itself, and can sincerely smile into that which smiles back at us.
 
Guys,
I have some news after extensive (1.5 days) of online research and searching.
There are no objective claims and proof of the benefits of orgonite or the pendants. Web searches on 'Torsion fields' (as recommended by Esoquest) provides enough scientific papers, experiments etc.
Orgonite searches provide subjective accounts. Geez. I went through page after page, seeking objectivity, but found none.
I even joined the forum "Warrior Matrix" for those people into gifting. (www.warriormatrix.com).
I posted the topic entitled "Who invented Orgonite?"
I posted that topic after my research, and found that the original inventor was Karl Hans Welz. He has patented the technology, but not according to Don and Carol Croft, who have overnight become the proprietary creators.
Apparently on Welz's site, http://www.orgone.net/, he has a disclaimer about 'orgonite thieves', where he claims that many people have used his patent without accrediting him.
Funny enough, the topic i posted as to the original creator of orgonite, was deleted a few hours ago by the site administrator(s).
I received 2 emails to inform me that there were responses to my topic, but on clicking the link, and checking out the warriormatrix website, the topic was gone! What are they trying to hide? Is it that their claims have no solid proof/ backing? hmm

So, I say to Schriss, don't take my word, go do some research.
The orgonite and etheric technology area is very subjective, there is no hard evidence.

Thanks Laura for that eye opening, informative piece. Esoquest, thanks for the input.

PS I do apologize if i have strayed off topic
 
Wiley, it's not off topic. It's a great topic. I just wish there had been somebody like me out there writing the stuff I write (after doing the research and experimenting) that would have saved me a whole heck of a lot of misery and suffering. Sure, everybody's got to learn a lot of things on their own, but we have schools because, as human beings, we can transmit information between ourselves. As my grandmother always said: A smart man learns from his mistakes, a genius learns from the mistakes of others.

I took that to heart.

For exampke, when I mentioned that I studied a whole raft of so-called "occult" teachings what I mean is that I didn't just read their stuff, I read about the people behind those ideas, the history of the time in which the ideas emerged, who knew who and was connected to who, what else was going on in their lives, and so on and so forth. I would have to say that it was the historical research that convinced me that these paths left a whole lot to be desired.

So, by the time I found out about Ouspensky and Gurdjieff, when I was bedridden after having my fourth child as I described in the other thread about spells and curses, I had already pretty much been through what was generally available. I had a pretty extensive occult library; I would buy books instead of eating sometimes! Fact is, at present, I think we have one of the most extraordinary libraries on the planet.

Well, anyway, as I said, I wish there had been somebody doing all this stuff that I'm doing, reading everything in sight, collecting the actual excerpts, condensing, comparing, and trying to find the FACTS in all that mess.

And keep in mind that I do not for one instant neglect the very fragile "psychic" phenomena. Not a bit. Heck, I've had too many experiences of my own to deny them. And those experiences are what have convinced me that there is something important for us to learn. But even there, I try to collect data, compare, find the facts and not just the subjective interpretations.

Now, on this subject, let me paste in here a MOST IMPORTANT bit of information that is included in my book Secret History. It goes directly with the above notes from my alchemy lectures.

Keep in mind the "As above, so below" principle as you read and that what happens in the body is just the physical expression of what is happening to the "corpus spiritus."

Spiritual Drugs
Remember what we started with here: chemists came up with the idea that drugs worked in the body by attaching themselves to something in the body. Now we know about receptors and that they are receptive to chemicals manufactured by the body itself. Ligands, peptides, neurotransmitters, hormones, etc, are produced in the body and BY the body in certain "steps" that involve very complex processes.

And here is where we come to the DANGER part.

You see, there are chemicals, both natural and synthetic, that are sufficiently similar to the body's own ligands to bind with the receptors without producing all of the same results that are produced when the body secretes its own ligands in the natural steps. The opiate receptor, for instance, can "receive" not only the body's endorphins, but can also bind to morphine, or heroin. The Valium receptor can attach not only to Valium-like peptides produced in the body, but also to Valium.

Remember, "no drug can act unless fixed." This means that if a drug works, it is because there is a receptor for it in the body. This, then, suggests that the receptor is there because it binds to a ligand produced by the body itself, which suggests that the body can produce its own drugs, stimulating its own healing, under the proper circumstances.

Looking in another direction, when we consider drugs that change "behavior," such as heroin, marijuana, Librium, "angel dust," or PCP, and so on, which precipitate radical changes in emotional states, these must also be able to bind because there are receptors for similar substances produced by the body. LSD and other hallucinogens, which produce changes in cognition, must also do so because there are receptors specific to them; suggesting again that such chemicals may, under proper circumstances, be produced by the body itself. This suggests to us that there may be natural steps to, or processes served by, such chemicals. And here we approach a very significant problem where, again, we may take the "as above, so below" approach to understanding our own natures.

Alcohol and Caffeine

Alcohol.

Alcohol is everywhere. Tens of millions of human beings experience the consequences of alcohol addiction, from decreased job performance to liver damaged by spouse and child abuse, to total breakdown of social concepts and constraints ending in the proverbial "skid-row bum" looking every day for his MD 20-20 - or even a can of Sterno.

That is just alcohol. We aren't even going to list the details for other drugs as it would be tedious and pointless. You have the idea.

Alcohol and other drugs have the ability to do what they do in our systems because they are "fixed;" they are synthetic ligands; they bind to our receptors and, in various ways, produce their effects.

In order to get an idea of how these fake ligands actually work, let's take a look at caffeine. As our neurons process information, they produce cellular waste including a buildup of molecules of adenosine. Adenosine is a ligand that binds with the adenosine receptor sending a message deep into the cell that it is time to sleep. You could say that adenosine is a sort of "warning system" that helps keep the body balanced. As the production of adenosine continues throughout the day, as a byproduct of cerebral activity, more and more adenosine is produced, binding with more and more receptors, sending more and more sleep messages into more cells. Little by little our brain cells become more and more sluggish until we just simply must go to sleep. We literally can't remain conscious. We yawn; our eyes water and try to close, and we just want to curl up and let the lights go out.
Or, we have a cup of espresso.

The caffeine molecule just happens to be the right "shape" for the adenosine receptor. It hops on and binds. But, instead of doing what the adenosine does, it sends a different message or, at the very least, blocks the sleep message from being sent by the real adenosine. In short, it interrupts the natural sleep signal, allowing a lot more cellular waste to accumulate, putting the individual in a state of toxicity, which can eventually lead to a breakdown of health.

In general, this seems to be the worst thing that caffeine does - it simply blocks the action of the ligand adenosine which sends sleep messages. Many people have been scared by incomplete research suggesting that caffeine does other deadly things, but additional studies have suggested that any consequences result merely from the disruption of the sleep cycle and a consequent break-down in the serotonin-melatonin cycle.

The important thing about this is, however, the comparison to information that is or is not accepted by the seeker which we will address more directly at the end of this volume. What we see in the example of caffeine as an "imitator" of adenosine is that the natural ligand seems to have some very subtle property that is conveyed deep into the cell, and the caffeine either blocks this message by occupying the receptor, or perhaps sends a contradictory message. Because of the exactitude of the molecule, adenosine apparently does more than the "almost ligand," caffeine.

Now, if we think of information as ligands, we can see that accepting as true something that is not, may not only block our ability to receive the proper messages of what IS true, it may even send contradictory messages.

Spiritual experiences that are "induced" ritually, chemically or technically from "down here" in order to change the spiritual state "up there," operate in exactly this way. It seems that what we accept as true or not affects our spirit and state of awareness, not to mention our potentials for soul ascension. We could even compare certain "all is love and light" beliefs to the action of caffeine: they prevent the natural warning system from operating which tells the spirit when it needs to withdraw from certain things and allow a period of "cleansing" to take place. Over time, this can result in serious breakdown of the spirit, even - it seems - ultimate subsumation into Non-being. There is, however, a more serious problem we have to deal with: addiction.

Pleasure Centers and Drugs

Probably everyone has heard about some experiments that were done on rats where they were implanted with electrodes for self-stimulation of the "pleasure center" of the brain. What was discovered was that the rats would push the button until they were exhausted. Further experiments demonstrated that if the electric reward is doled out only when the rats learn a new trick - such as navigating a maze - the little critters will go to work like crazy to get the job done so that they can get their "buzz." As long as the rewards keep coming, the rats will keep working - even mastering incredibly complex and seemingly impossible mazes that humans would find nearly impossible!
But, it's not the learning they love.

The initial studies showed that, given the opportunity, the rats would forget everything - food, mates, and friends, whatever - to push that damn button until they collapse in mindless ecstasy!

In the human being, as in other creatures, the sensation that is experienced as orgasm is the same release of chemicals that stimulate the same part of the brain that makes the rats so happy. Some scientists refer to this in "technical jargon" as the "do-it-again" center. When this center is stimulated, whatever activity is associated with it will be sought again and again.

As we now know, drugs "short circuit" these centers because they "fix" to receptors. We also know that when we take certain drugs, our brain acts to a certain extent as if the "natural" neurotransmitter were flooding the system. In the case of the pleasure center, the chemistry is so similar to what the brain would produce naturally if we had done something really great such as finding food or warmth or making love with a soul mate, that even if the person is hunkered down in a filthy flophouse reeking of vomit and excreta, with a hypodermic of heroin in his or her arm, the pleasure centers know only that they are bathed in chemical bliss.

Here is an important thing to consider. Even if the first time a person is induced to "try" such a drug, they are disgusted or repelled by the setting, the process, all the external elements, once they have received that reward, their whole perception begins to shift. Because the physical body loves that feeling so much, because it is so overwhelmingly compelling, the mind begins to rationalize that the nasty setting, the whole process that is clearly damaging to the self, is not merely "okay," but is actually "desirable." After all, how could it be bad if it feels so good? If part of the self argues that it can't be good, another part of the self becomes literally frantic to achieve the state again. After all, what is going on in real life only produces "stress" and "bad feelings" which add the argument: you have suffered, now you deserve a reward!

The only problem with both drug addiction and spiritual addiction is that it is nearly always presented in a setting of pleasure and refinement. It is promoted as a "tool" to "enhance awareness."

When cocaine is snorted up the nose, it heads straight for the dopamine re-uptake sites and blocks them. In this case, the "feel good sensation" is not from the drug, but from the fact that your own natural dopamine is flooding your cells, binding with the dopamine receptors like crazy, unable to be reabsorbed. The brain only knows one thing: this feels GREAT! Crack cocaine reportedly produces a more intense sensation of pleasure than any natural act, including orgasm! And, take note that it is from the body's own chemical that this pleasure is experienced by virtue of the blocking of the re-uptake site. Again, we note that this prevents the body's own specific ligand from binding with the re-uptake sites which is very likely also blocking a message intended to go deep into the cell. As it happens, this produces dreadful consequences, as we will soon see.

Morphine and Heroin work in a slightly different way. They mimic endorphins which trigger the release of the body's own dopamine. So, instead of the sensation occurring because the natural flow of dopamine is not reabsorbed, it occurs because there is too much dopamine to be reabsorbed! But again, the fake endorphin is undoubtedly not sending the proper signal deep into the cells it is binding, and again, the excess of dopamine has significant consequences.

What are these consequences?

With repeated use of cocaine, heroin or morphine unbalancing the body's own dopamine processes, the body reacts by reducing the number of receptors! With fewer receptors, the effects of the drug - as well as the body's normal ability to bind dopamine that is naturally present - plummets. Without the normal flow of dopamine into a normal number of receptors, the brain experiences "withdrawal" which is interpreted quite literally as "pain."

It is the agony of a mind that can feel no pleasure at all.

In strictly physical terms, one of the serious consequences of this process comes from the fact that dopamine plays an important role in controlling movement, emotion and cognition. Dopamine dysfunction has been implicated in schizophrenia, mood disorders, attention-deficit disorder, Tourette's syndrome, substance dependency, tardive dyskinesia, Parkinson's disease and so on. Of course, the situation is a lot more complex because at least seven types of dopamine receptors have been identified.

Now, the point of this diversion into brain chemistry as an exercise in understanding the principle "as above, so below," is this: "accepting" what is not Truth is like taking a drug that binds to psychic receptors, so to say.

So, this brings us back to the beginning of this section where I said "gathering false knowledge is worse than gathering no knowledge at all." False knowledge, lies, are spiritual drugs and are not the "natural chemical" of the soul's own "light," so to say. The result is that it tends to create a condition of dependence by reducing the "psychic receptors" which then reduces the capacity to "bind truth." In short, a person may be researching like crazy, but if he or she isn't really, really utilizing perspicacity - that is, challenging and taking apart what is being studied in a diligent way - his or her acceptance based on "blind faith" amounts to getting your jollies with drugs.
The end result is analogous to the skid row bum in spiritual terms.

What is more, we notice from studying ligands and receptors that the body's own chemicals have qualities that the imitations - drugs - do not. Those qualities, based on shape and atomic structure, can activate processes that the synthetic ligand cannot. The body's chemical can even turn on cascades of processes within the cells that are blocked by the "artificial" ligand.

Truth works in the same way.

The accumulation of "high probability" information without prejudice amounts to the gathering of all the parts of a very complex neuropeptide. When all the right pieces are finally together, it produces a certain "shape" that "fits" the spiritual receptor like a key in a lock. At that point - when the information block/unit is complete - it's proximity causes the receptor to "hum" and the ligand/info "hums" back and they sort of "jump together" almost in the same way that describes physical ligands and receptors. AUM.

And so we find that the principle is this: to gather, gather, gather information and observations without any "ingestion," so to say. This most definitely means to avoid practices which may produce the "do it again" chemicals because it is all too easy to be seduced into doing it again and again which amounts to blind belief.

Here, of course, we come up against a very special problem: the programs of our "machine," our "intellect."

The formation and training of our intellect is done under circumstances that are the worst possible for developing the ability to think. Now is neither the time nor the place to go into a lengthy examination about what is wrong with childhood education, theories of infant care, and the endless lies propagated by our society and culture. Add to that an endless stream of considerations based on physical appearance, and by the time the ordinary person becomes an adult, he can neither think nor feel according to what is Truth. He has become a "false personality" that thinks it has a soul. "Like can only be understood and grasped by like," so it is no wonder that the modern day seeker of ascension goes about it in the wrong way. Nearly all "paths" of ascension appeal to this false self and, as we might guess, produce physical sensations that are imitations of what occurs in the process of true ascension.

It is at this point that we begin to understand the idea of esotericism better. Esotericism is the accessing of facts and actions that are accessible to the field of consciousness of the Soul. When we consider our state in the "real world," we find that this is a very difficult path.

Knowledge is everywhere, but most of it is external to us. When we pour something into a cup, it can only contain an amount equal to its capacity. We are only able to understand according to the capacity of our Being. To be able to evolve esoterically, we must constantly seek to enlarge and enhance our Being, to develop the "vessel."

Esotericism seeks to develop consciousness of the Divine. The problem is that our consciousness is, for the most part, simply a program that runs in our machine. The higher consciousness that is sought in terms of ascension is the real "I" or the soul; it is the theorized permanent point that exists within us throughout many incarnations. This real "I" is something like an impartial referee whose small voice is mostly obscured in the roar of external events and personality programs. Nevertheless, it is this tiny spark of the real self that is the seed of the possibility of esoteric development.

Most human beings rarely - if ever - experience contact with the real "I." Yet, the personality pretends that it has achieved this level of consciousness. We should note that an individual who has actually reached such a level of firm contact and expansion of the real "I" will also possess attributes such as the ability to accurately judge the consequences of his or her actions, the constant exercise of his own will, an ability to do - to initiate acausal events - as well as a bearing or attitude that is consistent with itself in all situations and conditions. Most of all, such a person does not lie to himself.

An objective examination of many of those who claim such qualities is sufficient to demolish such pretensions.

There is so vast a chasm between the qualities that people ascribe to themselves, and what they can really DO, that careful consideration of this point ought to be undertaken before one attaches belief to any such claims or any such teacher.

Nevertheless, to establish contact with the higher self, for lack of a better term, this very small seed of the soul connection that exists within us is the object of esoteric science. It seems that the only people who have a real hope of accomplishing this process are those who are "bankrupted." In other words, all the beliefs, all the programs, all the lies that have been part of the self from childhood, must collapse or be stripped away.

We are all corrupted by the exterior world of matter - the domain of Non-being and its gravitational lures. Even when experience contradicts what a person believes about him or herself, they are seldom able to make the cause and effect connection because of the serious deficiencies that are programmed into us from birth.

We generally explain our failures as "lack of will."

What people do not realize is that failure is not generally due to a lack of will or desire, but to a lack of BEING.

It is only with the development of BEING that we begin to understand the knowledge we have acquired. Only then, with understanding combined with BEING, do we have the ability to Do.

Our personality is the interface between our body and spirit. Because of the nature of our reality, the personality is mostly "programs" of the flesh, or genetic body so to say. The Machine runs on the "do it again principle." Most contemporary human beings are far more concerned about "appearances" or "experiences" that give them a buzz than they are about their Being.

The intimate relationship of the personality to the physical body and its interactive programs is little understood, yet it is crucial to development of the "I" that is more than a "ghost in the machine." We can note that when the average person experiences serious pain, all of their noble instincts fly out the window. Some people, of course, have the ability to master pain and to work on no matter what. They are considered to be heroic, and it is certainly a similar nature that succeeds in esoteric work. It is not a path for the weak.

The interdependence of the personality and the body - the machine which we have to operate with in this reality - leads us to the logical conclusion that it is this very machine and its programs that are most important for us to study in order to learn perspicacity, to learn to distinguish between the real and the false.

It is at this point that we begin to learn about the "tolerances" of our machine. We begin to discover that we spend most of our time swinging between action and reaction with no real input of the true "I." We discover that we have an ideal image of ourselves that has very little foundation in actual fact or "results." However, we cover all of this up by "faith" in our ideal image and our lies that we ARE that illusory self.

We come back to the fact that we attribute to ourselves qualities that we do not possess because if we possessed them, our lives would exactly mirror our image of ourselves.

Our lies about what is really happening in our lives are what we use to "patch up" our egos with rationalizations and justifications, all of which conceal from us the fact that we cannot really DO anything because we have no Being.

Generally, to avoid facing the pain of this realization, people will take drugs of both the chemical and spiritual variety. It is only a matter of type and degree.

An individual who has undertaken the process of developing perspicacity in terms of the self, once he has learned to discern between his lies to himself and what is true about himself, can then begin to extend this ability to external knowledge. At that point, the information and observations he or she has been collecting without prejudice will make a "knowledge unit-ligand." When that happens, when a "piece of the puzzle" finally jumps into the right slot of understanding, THEN a whole cascade of things begins to happen just as it happens in the body when a ligand binds receptors.

And at that point, the state changes. And this leads us to the most exciting information about this "separating the milk from the cream" process. [a reference to alchemy.]

As it happens, sometimes the information communicated to the interior of the cell by the ligands involves instructions to turn specific genes in the cell on or off! The same gene in different environments can produce many variations on a given trait and influence the expression of other genes. What is more, it is a scientific fact that changes in thoughts and behavior are reflected in the changes in the synapses.

It has been shown that Electric potentials release serotonin onto the synaptic terminals, and there is sufficient anecdotal evidence about electrical shocks producing changes in an individual that result in manifestation of "super-normal abilities" as we have already described, that we must stop and consider this question. As we have also noted, having had such abilities "turned on" by either the accident of genetics, an electrical shock, or a blow to the head, does not necessarily relate to the individual being spiritually advanced. What we can surmise from this item of information is that the serotonin released as a result of electric shock must somehow "skip a step" in a potentially natural process of DNA activation that is potential in all of us to one extent or another.

In other words, is there a natural process whereby serotonin is released in large quantities in concert with other ligands which can literally turn on DNA that activates a full range of "paranormal" abilities and that also are directly related to one's spiritual maturity?

There are far more exciting considerations about DNA potentials, but, for the moment, we will leave the subject with the warning that failing to properly "separate" the cream from the milk means that the Seeker will not even get to the point where he can skim the cream off and utilize it. What is even worse, "binding" oneself to that which is false may produce temporary "feel good" results, but in the long run, it not only blocks the possibility of binding Truth, it perpetuates itself by reducing the ability to perceive/bind with truth at ALL. Every single choice to accept something as Truth, to make a "leap of assumption," is a psychic ligand binding to a spiritual receptor. If what is believed is a lie, it is equivalent, in the brain, to a "false" ligand, like heroin. After awhile, there is no longer anywhere for Truth to bind or seat, and the condition of the Seeker is worse than before he began his quest in the same way an individual who has become a skid-row bum by his use of alcohol and/or drugs was far better off before he began his descent into addiction.

The fact is: lies ARE addicting. They are made that way on purpose.

However, in terms of the Quest for the Holy Grail, as in the Alchemical pursuit of the Philosopher's Stone, just as it is in the case of the body potentials, when certain natural (spiritual) ligands are produced by sending signals into the cell to activate "sleeping DNA," abilities can be unlocked, including even psychic abilities and powers. And these psychic abilities then put the Seeker on an entirely different level. He has made, effectively, a Quantum Jump in terms of his State of Awareness.
 
Thanks EQ, I was thinking along exactly the same lines, since I was hoping that my life since the frightening delirium was working towards a point like that. I sure as heck wasn't ready at age nine!

EsoQuest said:
Just to add my too cents here.

The sense of being staggered by the potentials of the mind is in proportion to the differential between the mind's awareness of itself and its true potential. As the mind discovers its natural coherence with the Universal reflection, new connections allow the truth of its nature to be more naturally accepted.

In other words, the more we grow into the truth of who we are, the more comfortable we become with our own potential. Eventually this allows us to reach a state where we are "eye to eye" with the Universe itself, and can sincerely smile into that which smiles back at us.
 
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