“Researchers say they’ve taken a significant stride forward in understanding how relaxation techniques such as meditation, prayer and yoga improve health: by changing patterns of gene activity that affect how the body responds to stress. The changes were seen both in long-term practitioners and in newer recruits, the scientists said.

“It’s not all in your head,” said Dr. Herbert Benson, president emeritus of the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind/Body Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. “What we have found is that when you evoke the relaxation response, the very genes that are turned on or off by stress are turned the other way. The mind can actively turn on and turn off genes. The mind is not separated from the body.”

One outside expert agreed. “It’s sort of like reverse thinking: If you can wreak havoc on yourself with lifestyle choices, for example, [in a way that] causes expression of latent genetic manifestations in the negative, then the reverse should hold true,” said Dr. Gerry Leisman, director of the F.R. Carrick Institute for Clinical Ergonomics, Rehabilitation and Applied Neuroscience at Leeds Metropolitan University in the U.K.”

(via The Washington Post)

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Tantric masturbation - how to do it and why. Plus advocacy for group tantric masturbation. Not at all safe for work.

Tantric Masturbation

(via Chaoflux)

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This is a couple weeks old:

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, a guru to the Beatles who introduced the West to transcendental meditation, died Tuesday at his home in the Dutch town of Vlodrop, a spokesman said. He was thought to be 91 years old.

“He died peacefully at about 7 p.m.,” said Bob Roth, a spokesman for the Transcendental Meditation movement that Maharishi founded. He said his death appeared to be due to “natural causes, his age.”

Full Story: AP on Yahoo!

(via Robot Wisdom)

See also: Stripping the Gurus chapter on Maharishi Mahesh.

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I recently read on Boing Boing about a book that expounds on The Secret, un-commercially called The Secret Source: The Law of Attraction is One of Seven Hermetic Laws: Here Are the Other Six (link). Using the usual occult description (whereas I just throw in cliché occult imagery for effect… though it did come up in an image search for “Kybalion”):

The Secret Source goes above and beyond the media phenomenon known as The Secret to reveal the powerful occult doctrines that gave birth to “The Law of Attraction.”

If you recognized the power behind “The Law of Attraction” but felt ambivalent about The Secret’s materially-driven, infomercial style approach, you will appreciate this deeper understanding and examination of the Law’s true nature.

Or you can just read The Kybalion here for free on Google Books. (Wikipedia entry.) Enjoy.

The Seven Principles of Kybalion Awesomeness:—

• Principle of Mentalism
  The Principle of Mentalism embodies the truth that “All is Mind.”
• Principle of Correspondence
  The Principle of Correspondence embodies the idea that there is always a correspondence between the laws of phenomena of the various “planes” of being and life. As above, so below; as below, so above.
• Principle of Vibration
  The Principle of Vibration embodies the idea that motion is manifest in everything in the Universe, that nothing rests, and everything moves, vibrates, and circles.
• Principle of Polarity
  The Principle of Polarity embodies the idea that everything is dual, everything has two poles, and everything has its opposite.
• Principle of Rhythm
  The Principle of Rhythm embodies the idea that in everything there is manifested a measured motion, a to and fro, a flow and inflow, a swing backward and forward, a pendulum-like movement.
• Principle of Cause and Effect
  The Principle of Cause and Effect explains that there is a cause for every effect, and an effect for every cause. It also states that there is no such thing as chance, that chance is merely a term indicating extant causes not recognized or perceived.
• Principle of Gender
  The Principle of Gender embodies the idea that there gender is manifested in everything. The authors state this does not relate to “sex,” but to “… beget; to procreate, to generate, to create, or to produce” in general. Gender is manifested as the Masculine and Feminine principles, and manifests itself on all planes. [More on this here.]

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The group also embraced serious neo-tantic sex ritual, which they called “Dionysm.” Besides treating sex as an expression of sacred sensuality, YaHoWha and his sons all committed to the rigorous practice of withholding their seed except for procreation or esoteric monthly rites. Restraining the typical male climax can ultimately produce intense full-body orgasms, charging the circuit between partners, but activating the kundalini is no “easy lay” in practice. Interestingly, the nineteenth-century Oneida Community, led by the bearded visionary John Humphrey Noyes, also practiced “plural marriage” and what they called “Male Continence.” The words may change, but the song remains the same.

Full Story: Techngnosis.

Buy The Source: The Untold Story of Father Yod, Ya Ho Wa 13, and The Source Family.

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The Laboratorian:

A great deal of blather about the practices of Raja Yoga exist, and a great way to fuck someone up at worst, or impede their progress at best, is to provide them a gate into a dangerous territory then give them a sloppy map. Much of it, sadly, can be traced back to Crowley’s histrionic rubies-in-the-shit approach to writing. Look at Robert Anton Wilson’s Prometheus Rising, and the confusion leaps out at anyone with experience. Wilson claims that counting the breath, a technique to aid concentration in novices, is a watered-down form of pranayama, which according to him is the real means to achieve these lofty states. He asserts that mantra, a form of concentration, is a device used for achieving pratyahara. While I respect some of Wilson’s acid-drenched project, and realize that he often claimed to have both provided disinformation and hidden messages in his texts to spurn further research (like any Joyce scholar would), I also believe that at times he simply hid his sloppiness (New Falcon was his publisher, for christ’s sake) behind these conceits. I also disagree intensely with publishing a mass-market book with disinformation–it is one thing to send a student on fool’s errands, it is another to knowingly deceive thousands with whom one has no relationship. To provide my personal example, after reading Prometheus Rising I began practicing pranayama with a mantra for ninety minutes a day, getting up at four thirty in the morning to get in the time, then hoping in the shower and going to work. I had no clue that focusing on a mantra would induce all manner of altered states, because I always assumed it was, per Wilson, the pranayama that did that. Likewise, reading a sloppy account of the actual territory of the altered states like the one Crowley offers in Book 4 helps little. The fact that a real madman, Austin Osman Spare, provides clearer instruction in doing this type of thing with his coded passages on the Death Posture–which is really just advice in what Daniel Ingram outlines as “Buddhist Magick 101“–should say something about just how clear the advice that the Post-Theosophist crew offer is.

Full Story: From the Lab.

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Everyone, even coked-out party monsters and meth freaks, must sleep. Even liver-bruising doses of Provigil will only let most people function thirty hours consecutively, and then it’s time to pay dear Morpheus. For those of us who have better things to do then sleep, this is a problem. The past several months, one of my personal projects has been to cultivate lucidity while sleeping in order to make some use of this time. As one Tibetan monk put it, if a man lives one hundred years but remains waking while asleep, “it is as though he lives two hundred years”. And the Tibetan monks would be the ones to listen to on this topic, as they have spent about the past two millenia hanging out in the bleakest environment on earth mastering their minds through magick and meditation. One of the technologies to which they have devoted much attention is Dream Yoga.

Full Story: From the Laboratory.

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PDF.

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(via A Day in the Life of).

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(The following is a journal response to the First Gear portion of the Mechanical Problems section of Angel Tech by Antero Alli as part of Portland Occulture’s Angel Tech study group).

“Perhaps the most severe form of the Confusion Alert comes as the idea that the body is an “inferior or lower” self suspected of the most heinous intentions. These kind of body-images perpetrate the belief in a “split” “between the body and the spirit. This singular illusion, may, indeed, be responsible for provoking and sustaining the state of spiritual amnesia so prevalent today […] The body is seen as anything from “evil” to an impediment on the path of enlightenment, something one must overcome and come to grips with. It is this very “grip” that we have on ourselves that is begging to be released. There has been such a tremendous era of self-negation, that our need for self-affirmation has grown so great as to require elaborate systems of thought and belief to justify its existence.”

- Angel Tech pg. 72

The emphasis on “first gear” (physical body/malkuth/first circuit) was well timed as I was already starting to ease out of more mental and intellectual work (scrying the ethers and working through the VGW) and focusing on yoga and kendo. I was pusing the mental work a little too hard, and after hitting the 10th ether, I figured it was time to slow down a bit.

Yoga, martial arts, and similar practices differ from other forms of intense exercise in the way they bring awareness to the body. I’ve been doing Kundalini and kendo regularly for about a month now, and the change in my awareness of and comfort with my body is amazing. For around a month now I’ve also had to walk about 1.5 - 2 miles everyday because of a change to my bus route. I’ve also recently added Vinyasa yoga to my routine. I may now be starting to move too much in the body work direction. We’ll see how long I can keep all this up. But even before I started in on the Angel Tech group I’ve wanted to start placing more emphasis on body work and have hoped to integrate it more fully with mental work. Finding the balance is an ongoing work itself.

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When Fell posted a Bullshit! segment a while back, I provided some thoughts about the 2 episodes I had seen.

I just watched the yoga segment of their “new age” episode last night, and thought it was even worse. This is a really old episode and it might not make any sense to respond to it after all this time, but here it goes anyway.

First things first, they say that yoga is “just stretching.” They’re either being deliberately misleading here, or they didn’t bother to stay for more than the first 5 minutes of the yoga class they filmed (or they found a yoga class that was not representative of yoga classes in general).

(Pics swiped from Yoga Bhoga in Portland).

OK, so the pics above are relatively advanced (I believe they’re Ashtanga, aka power yoga, positions), but I think you can get the point - yoga is also about exercise using your own weight. Saying “yoga is just a fancy name for stretching” doesn’t hold water. Asking “does yoga hold up against other forms of strength training” is a valid question to ask. All I can say is that yoga (including “hatha yoga,” the most common, basic yoga) classes challenge my strength every time.

Neither does their claim that yoga is bogus because stretching a muscle longer than 30 seconds is not useful. I rarely, if ever, have been instructed to hold a stretch for more than 30 seconds. When a position is held longer it’s held for the purposes of strength, discipline, and/or relaxation. The exception is when you’re actually pushing a stretch further and further, which doesn’t found for “holding” because you’re actually advancing.

The other claim Penn and Teller make is that yoga is more expensive than other exercise classes. In my experience, it is not. Most of the gyms/health clubs in Portland offer yoga classes along with other exercise classes as part of your standard fees. I know that $15 seems to be the going rate for drop-ins at yoga classes in the Portland area, but I don’t know what the rate for other strength training classes are. (Yoga classes are cheaper when prepaid in advance or as part of a package deal, and there’s actually a free class at Liberty Hall).

It would have been more interesting to see P&T evaluate some of the other claims about yoga, such as improved immune systems, stress relief, etc. as compared to other forms of exercise, or even how yoga stacks up as strength training. But to dismiss it as overpriced stretching is bullshit.

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Two scientists from the University of Copenhagen have demonstrated that the spinal cord use network mechanisms similar to those used in the brain. The discovery is featured in the current issue of Science.

The research group behind the surprising results consists of Professor Jørn Hounsgaard and postdoc Rune W. Berg from the University of Copenhagen, and Assistant Professor and PhD Aidas Alaburda from the University of Vilnius. The group has shown that spinal neurons, during network activity underlying movements, show the similar irregular firing patterns as seen in the cerebral cortex.

Full Story: Science Daily.

(Thanks Danny Chaoflux).

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Peripheral neuropathy is a degenerative nerve disease with no cure and few effective treatment options — until now. Li Li, professor of kinesiology at LSU, is conducting a study into the benefits of tai chi for elderly peripheral neuropathy patients. So far, those practicing tai chi show far greater levels of improvement that those pursuing more traditional methods of treatment.

Full Story: Science Daily.

(Thanks Danny Choaflux).

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This Wikipedia article details the Indian martial art Lathi, and claims that it is based around raising Kundalini. However, no sources are cited.

Wikipedia: Lathi.

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This looks like a good program of study - basically a condensed version of Hyatt’s “energized meditation” (itself based on Reichian therapy). I’d recommend doing this in tandum with some streneous excercise (doing this every day along with marial arts seems ideal, but I haven’t tried it).

Nearly every tradition agrees that mastery over the body and mind precede effective spiritual development and advanced will-working. However even the most committed occultists have trouble sitting down for regular daily meditation. While intellectually magic!ians recognize the benefits of such mundane work few seem to understand the rich benefits and absolute necessity of daily body-mind work. The work is often seen as boring or lacking in purpose and worth. It is clearly time to provide fresh insights on the most basic of esoteric techniques, to demystify them and in the process make the benefits offered by basic meditation more accessible.

Full Story: Key 23.

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IGN’s notes from the event.

CBR’s notes from the event.

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I haven’t listened to it yet, but here’s a CBC radio show on the science of happiness:

Audio files at CBC.

Also, a couple other links regarding happiness that I’ve been sitting on:

Concerning Happiness by Pierre Gassendi (via DRT).

And here’s a yogi demonstrating a laughing yoga technique.

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Alessandra asked me how I drove, and not really thinking about it mimiced a space cadet and then I realized there was another circuit to the Leary Model: Internal vs External

I would say that it is woven between the first 3. The idea is thus: While all people view the world through the screens of World View (however THAT is shaped), people tend to favor either noticing the world through their eyes (External) or watching the world through their mental television sets (Internal).

Full Story: Everyday Avatar.

Patanjali defined 5 ” movements of the mind” in the Yoga Sutras. This internal/external dichotomy seems similar:

proven theory (correct observations?)
wrong knowledge (flawed perceptions?)
imagination
sleep
memory

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Advanced Yoga Practices is a huge collection of articles on yoga, meditation, and tantra.

Link.

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Perhaps the world’s most influencial yogi, B.K.S Iyengar is making a rare US visit this fall to promote his new book Light on Life.

B. K. S. Iyengar is widely considered to be the world�s greatest living yoga teacher and, more than any single person, responsible for the huge popularity of yoga in the West. Last year, Time Magazine named him as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. This fall, Mr. Iyengar will make an historic visit to the United States, from September 26 to October 20, 2005.

Link (via Bread, Coffee, Chocolate, Yoga).

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Click link below for full image.

Metachor’s mapped the sephiroth, the Chakras, and the Leary’s 8 dimensions of consciousness to each other.

Link

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Author of the Yoga of Time Travel, also known for his appearance in What the Bleep do We Know?, has a blog.

Link (via Chapel Perilous).

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Fortune Elkins

I guarantee that if you go into yoga class with an “attitude,” you will be frustrated. . .because very few people can do it all in their first class.

this is such a good thing, because it violently demonstrates to you that your ‘tude, which you think is protecting you in daily life, is actually a massive hindrance. it’s a fake shell that silently irks other people and blocks your way.

Link.

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“Anyone can laugh in a group for 15-20 min without depending upon the Sense of Humour, Jokes or comedy. It combines laughter exercises based on Yoga breathing, which turns into real laughter when practiced in a group.”

Link (via LVX23)

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