Sunday, September 18, 2005
The Biology of Transcendence
The other night, I attended a lecture by Joseph Chilton Pearce. His earlier books included "The Crack in the Cosmic Egg," "The Magical Child," and "The Magical Child Matures," as well as others. He is now about eighty, and he has news for us all.
Joseph Pearce has experienced unusual states of consciousness for many years. In this latest book, he describes an experience from his college days, when he went into a "timeless" state, and was able to hold lighted cigarettes against his body without harm. (This reminds me of the feats of the eastern yogis, some of whom can walk over nails, run spikes through their cheeks, and perform other "supernatural" feats. Caution: don't try these stunts at home. They can be quite damaging to those not in sufficiently heightened consciousness.) He also describes three "out of body" experiences in which he visited the woman he was in love with, and literally entered her body as she was writing him a letter of rejection. He was able to quote the letter word for word before it arrived. He repeated this feat two more times soon thereafter. (All of this material is from the book, not the lecture.)
But he wasn't there to teach us how to achieve such esoteric prowess. In his later years. he becaame a student of Siddha Yoga, and has apparently followed a profound spiritual path since. He comes across as a loving and authentic human being, eager to help his fellows achieve a better world for all.
But what he talked about to us was even more exciting than his earlier antics. He described some of the astonishing discoveries coming forth from the realm of frontier science. For each anecdote, he gave source and documentation, but I wasn't able to capture most of these. Among other impressive facts, he mentioned that a group called "HeartMath Institute" (look it up on Google) has found that the heart is not merely a pump serving a useful purpose for body and brain. The heart has intelligence, as important as or perhaps even more important than, the intelligence of the brain.
For example, in one experiment, the experimenters were trying to ascertain what effect negative vs. positive images might have on the brain and heart. Random images were flashed onto a screen, and readings were taken of the responses of each. Positive images elicited brain waves and heart rhythm in synch, negative the opposite. Oddly, the heart appeared to manifest chaotic response seconds before the negative image was flashed and registered on the brain. The experimenters were quite surprised--they were not even testing for such an effect. They ran the experiment over and over, many hundreds of times. The results were undeniable. The heart has foreknowledge of events that are about to happen as well as responses to those which have already occurred.
Pearce also pointed out that Darwin in "The Origin of the Species" tracked the evolution of the physical makeup of the human. But the frontal cortex, that which makes us human and gives us our distinction from the other species, appeared only some forty thousand years ago. Darwin himself, in "The Descent of Man (sic)", stated that this dramatic shift could have occurred only with the help of some external "moral" agent.
He showed us pictures of earth taken from outer space which showed in graphic detail how the magnetic field of earth is grossly distorted, a phenomenon which is now affecting every living thing on the planet.
Pearce feels that much of the aggressive and sometimes violent behaviors being displayed by some of our youth derive from the constant bombardment of all of us by the media, which transmits constant depictions of violence against others at every level. He showed images revealing that the brains of violent persons are themselves abnormal. In other words, violence may come from a biological condition, not merely a mental or emotional state.
The cure, for him, is the familiar one of love. Children desperately need to be held and stroked and loved as they develop. Babies flourish when they are cradled in the mother's arms, near the heart they kept close to in the womb . (He didn't explain why the father could not supply this same kind of loving physical contact.)
One last fact--a Harvard study tracked doctors from the time of their youth to several decades later. Those who reported happy childhoods had remarkably few debilitating diseases of age (diabetes, heart problems, and the like). Those who experienced unhappy childhoods had a distressing high rate of such problems.
Pearce told us that too many today have separated the brain from the heart. Indeed, one of the primal tribes of South America has come forth from isolation to tell us,
"The world's heart is dying."
This is but a fraction of the fascinating information Pearce gave us. He himself is a splendid example of a man fully connected to his heart, after so many decades of service in the field of consciousness studies. I have not yet read his new book, but plan to get a copy immediately, as well as another publication from the HeartMath Institute.
Both can be found on Amazon. The titles are "The Biology of Transcendence" (Joseph Chilton Pearce)
and "The HeartMath Solution: The Institute of HeartMath's Revolutionary Program for Engaging the Power of the Heart's Intelligence."
Joseph Pearce has experienced unusual states of consciousness for many years. In this latest book, he describes an experience from his college days, when he went into a "timeless" state, and was able to hold lighted cigarettes against his body without harm. (This reminds me of the feats of the eastern yogis, some of whom can walk over nails, run spikes through their cheeks, and perform other "supernatural" feats. Caution: don't try these stunts at home. They can be quite damaging to those not in sufficiently heightened consciousness.) He also describes three "out of body" experiences in which he visited the woman he was in love with, and literally entered her body as she was writing him a letter of rejection. He was able to quote the letter word for word before it arrived. He repeated this feat two more times soon thereafter. (All of this material is from the book, not the lecture.)
But he wasn't there to teach us how to achieve such esoteric prowess. In his later years. he becaame a student of Siddha Yoga, and has apparently followed a profound spiritual path since. He comes across as a loving and authentic human being, eager to help his fellows achieve a better world for all.
But what he talked about to us was even more exciting than his earlier antics. He described some of the astonishing discoveries coming forth from the realm of frontier science. For each anecdote, he gave source and documentation, but I wasn't able to capture most of these. Among other impressive facts, he mentioned that a group called "HeartMath Institute" (look it up on Google) has found that the heart is not merely a pump serving a useful purpose for body and brain. The heart has intelligence, as important as or perhaps even more important than, the intelligence of the brain.
For example, in one experiment, the experimenters were trying to ascertain what effect negative vs. positive images might have on the brain and heart. Random images were flashed onto a screen, and readings were taken of the responses of each. Positive images elicited brain waves and heart rhythm in synch, negative the opposite. Oddly, the heart appeared to manifest chaotic response seconds before the negative image was flashed and registered on the brain. The experimenters were quite surprised--they were not even testing for such an effect. They ran the experiment over and over, many hundreds of times. The results were undeniable. The heart has foreknowledge of events that are about to happen as well as responses to those which have already occurred.
Pearce also pointed out that Darwin in "The Origin of the Species" tracked the evolution of the physical makeup of the human. But the frontal cortex, that which makes us human and gives us our distinction from the other species, appeared only some forty thousand years ago. Darwin himself, in "The Descent of Man (sic)", stated that this dramatic shift could have occurred only with the help of some external "moral" agent.
He showed us pictures of earth taken from outer space which showed in graphic detail how the magnetic field of earth is grossly distorted, a phenomenon which is now affecting every living thing on the planet.
Pearce feels that much of the aggressive and sometimes violent behaviors being displayed by some of our youth derive from the constant bombardment of all of us by the media, which transmits constant depictions of violence against others at every level. He showed images revealing that the brains of violent persons are themselves abnormal. In other words, violence may come from a biological condition, not merely a mental or emotional state.
The cure, for him, is the familiar one of love. Children desperately need to be held and stroked and loved as they develop. Babies flourish when they are cradled in the mother's arms, near the heart they kept close to in the womb . (He didn't explain why the father could not supply this same kind of loving physical contact.)
One last fact--a Harvard study tracked doctors from the time of their youth to several decades later. Those who reported happy childhoods had remarkably few debilitating diseases of age (diabetes, heart problems, and the like). Those who experienced unhappy childhoods had a distressing high rate of such problems.
Pearce told us that too many today have separated the brain from the heart. Indeed, one of the primal tribes of South America has come forth from isolation to tell us,
"The world's heart is dying."
This is but a fraction of the fascinating information Pearce gave us. He himself is a splendid example of a man fully connected to his heart, after so many decades of service in the field of consciousness studies. I have not yet read his new book, but plan to get a copy immediately, as well as another publication from the HeartMath Institute.
Both can be found on Amazon. The titles are "The Biology of Transcendence" (Joseph Chilton Pearce)
and "The HeartMath Solution: The Institute of HeartMath's Revolutionary Program for Engaging the Power of the Heart's Intelligence."
