Parapsychology articles and blog

Meditation leads to happiness, according to studies. MRI scans of experienced meditators (above 10000 hours of meditation) have showed huge levels of “positive emotions” in the left pre-frontal cortex of the brain, which is associated with the happiness emotion. The right-hand side of the brain, which handles negative emotion, was suppressed.

One of the people that took the trial was Matthieu Ricard, 60, a French academic-turned-Buddhist monk. He’s translator for Dalai Lama books and is about to publish a book on happiness in the UK.

For more information: Independent.

I’ve come along an interesting new podcast (audio recording), titled “Skeptiko”. It is described as “Balanced discussion of new scientific discoveries and the methods for validating them.“

This podcast is run by Alex and currently has the first interview published. The interview is with Dr. Rupert Sheldrake, a famous biologist, researching various psi phenomena. I’ve written about Rupert’s works in Experiments of Rupert Sheldrake, Telephone telepathy experiments of Rupert Sheldrake and Can you sense being stared at?.

The second (not yet released podcast) is with Dr. Dean Radin, about whom I’ve also written on this site. Among other things, Dr. Radin also speaks of his spoon bending experience and issues with psi research and experiments.

Listen to the interviews on the Skeptiko website.

British Medical Journal published a study where acupuncture treatment was used to treat lower back pain and compared its health and cost effectiveness of regular treatments. The study was conducted for two years and pain levels were recorded at regular intervals.

At 12 months, patients in the acupuncture group showed a small benefit in pain scores compared to patients receiving usual care. Stronger evidence was observed for an increased benefit at 24 months.

At three months, patients in the acupuncture group were significantly more likely to be ‘very satisfied’ with their treatment compared with usual care, and with their overall care, but showed no such difference in satisfaction with information received.

At 24 months, the acupuncture group were more likely to report reduced worry about their back pain, less likely to report current use of pain medication for their back, and more likely to report no pain for the past 12 months.

Another paper by the same researchers showed that acupuncture was more cost effective than regular treatment to the government.

Having a problem with lower back pain myself and being treated with acupuncture (with Tui-Na massage, which is an integral part of Traditional Chinese Medicine) I can personally testify the effectiveness of this method.

Source for the research:
Cost Effective Relief From Low Back Pain With Acupuncture

Sylvia Browne, a very known psychic reader in the US, made a very unpleasant prediction about the possible fate of Shawn Hornbeck. Shawn was kidnapped at the age of 11, in late 2002. Sylvia appeared on TV on the "Montel Williams Show" in February 2003 and told Shawn's parents that he was dead and advised as to where to search for his body, which has led to shifting search team's efforts in that direction. It's painful to imagine how the family must have lost all hope after her reading.

This January Shawn was found alive just miles from his home living with a man who's kidnapped him.

The family of the kid also tells that Sylvia tried to offer more advice at the rate of $700 for half an hour.

I’m glad to announce my fifth interview for Mind-Enegy.net. Today I’m posting the interview of Bonnie Adam. Bonnie is a Tibeten -Usui and Karuna® Reiki Master, and also does psychic readings. She started reading professionally about 8 years ago. She read for friends for a few years before that. She has been doing Reiki for about 7 years and teaching Reiki and workshops for 3 years. She has an office in lovely downtown Guelph, Ontario, Canada. For more information about Bonnie go to http://www.pathwayshealing.com/ or check out her 2 blogs http://psychicsarepeopletoo.blogspot.com/, or http://www.healinghands-bonnie.blogspot.com/. She try to update them frequently, but the kids, the dog, her partner and her business do require quite a bit of attention. Enjoy it.

How have you discovered that you want to be a healer and a psychic? Did you develop your psychic power or was discovered “by accident”?

I have had ‘psychic’ experiences since childhood. I would be aware of spiritual beings, and I would hear things and see things that others did not. It was quite confusing as a child as I would be told by the adults around me that I was imagining things. I eventually seemed to have shut down my abilities, but they returned quite strongly when I was in my late teens. I would be aware of the spirits, and I would know that they were trying to communicate with me. It took a few years of practice and meditation before I was able to interpret the messages they were trying to send.

I learned about Reiki in 1997. My infant daughter needed surgery and she was in quite a lot of pain. I was guided to use my hands to try and sooth her, and her pain seemed to diminish. Very soon after that I was looking through a continuing education brochure and saw a class on Reiki. When I read the description I knew that I had been trying to do Reiki for my daughter, and signed up!

If you don’t know who Uri Geller is then you’re probably on the wrong blog. But, just in case, I’ll give a short description. Uri Geller is an Israel born psychic (so he claims) who mostly lives in UK for the last 20 or more years. Geller was a huge phenomenon during the 1970ies when he conquered the international stage by displaying feats of telekinesis and psychic extra-sensory perception, mostly by performing spoon bending and similar stunts. He also was verified by several researchers in US and, apparently found genuine. After his huge success he lowered his profile, partly after an unfortunate appearance on a TV show where he was asked to display his abilities without his prior knowledge. In any way, Uri Geller is one of the most controversial figures in the parapsychology community.

James Randi is a stage magician and the most known sceptic of any paranormal phenomena. He is also the head of an international association of skeptics. In the past Randi has furiously attacked Uri Geller, along with other people who claimed to be psychic. Randi even wrote a whole book on Uri Geller titled Truth About Uri Geller. In this book Randi describes how all of Geller’s “tricks” can be performed using ordinary stage magic.

Louis Yagera has an interesting blog, writing mostly about his experiences with audio CD's that enable mediation, altered states etc. He has now posted a list called A-Z of Mind Expansion where he explains various terms and links to sources of mind expansion technologies on the net. I was also pleasantly surprised that he included my site on his list. Thank you, Louis.

So ,if you want to learn more about the various brainwave patterns and who creates the CDs, visit his site.

My wife these days experiences acute sinusitis infection that causes her great pain in the face, pushing on her eyes, teeth and cheeks. Although she has started taking antibiotics, she also goes to acupuncture treatment which helped her somewhat during her most acute symptoms.

Yesterday I’ve also done some acupressure treatment on her using point I downloaded from the internet. There were 6 points, 2 on face, 3 on hand and one on the toe. What was really apparent is how strong those points ached her. My first touch on them drew cries of pain from her and the pain only subsided after a minute of pressure. And that was not only from the face points but also from the hand and even the toe.

There was also difference between levels of pain between the left and the right side. Acupressure needs to be done on both sides of the body to be most effective, since all meridians are mirrored in the body on the left and the right sides. Yet, the reaction can still be different. Her left side of the face was aching more due to sinusitis, so I presume that the healing on the left side ached more as well, but it’s just an uneducated guess.