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We know it's there, now how do we use it?: The brain's "God spot", and what it means for magick

  
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
11:46 / 20.04.02
From Salon.com:

As V.S. Ramachandran explained in his 1998 book "Phantoms in the Brain," patients with temporal lobe epilepsy may experience a variety of symptoms that include an obsessive preoccupation with religion and the intensified and narrowed emotional responses that are characteristic of mystical experience.

And from the Institute For Biblical and Scientific Studies:

At Laurentian University in Sudbury, Canada Michael Persinger has a lab set up to induce religious experiences. A person puts on a motorcycle helmet equipped with electromagnets that product a magnetic field that causes micro seizures (overactive neutrons) in the temporal lobe of the brain. These micro seizures cause spiritual and supernatural experiences. People will feel a sense of presence in the room (like God, angels or aliens), or have an out-of-body experience (like a near-death experience).

According to Persinger the sense of self is in the left hemisphere of the temporal cortex matched by a corresponding sense of self in the right hemisphere of the temporal cortex. When these two hemispheres become disorientated there will be a sense of another self. When the amygdala is also stimulated, emotional feelings will be enhanced causing intense spiritual feelings.

So we know we've got it, but what is it and what do we do with it? Your thoughts, please.
 
 
Utopia
18:12 / 20.04.02
my post in labratory about alpha-wave inspired music is actually conected to this. i left out the "God-spot" think because i thought that the technology was the more interesting thing. but there are scientific studies to find ways of accessing this region. it's there, you folks go at it!
 
 
Strange Machine Vs The Virus with Shoes
19:44 / 20.04.02
I dont know if anyone can provide more information on this, but didn't Learys LSD experiments on criminals have a 70 or 90% rate of "turning them to god"?
 
 
Kobol Strom
12:36 / 21.04.02
I'd like to activate my God spot again please,Mordant,and I know you know how!

Take the Kundalini rising, as a self activation of this area of the brain and possible precursor to the GOD spot.Theres definately some residual sense of an transfer of potential energy having taken place.Its pretty darned tempting to make the next assumption,that if this energy culd be tapped into ,rather as a 'force for self-healing',or 'ego-reassimilation',but for actual lightning bolt style pyrotechnic,psychokinetic magick.(Vulgar Magick?)
In light of the feelings after the event,Id say that the transformative power is working itself out throught the various parts of the 'blocked' energy pathways of the body culminating in a mind blast that fuses certain mind concepts and electrocutes or diminshes other,less stable mental constructs,like for example,an emotional attachment to a success.The analogy would be, that like a (is it a potentiatior?)
circuit board of massive complexity,there are moments when,in order to function at peak efficiency,certain useless circuits are just blown out.
This God spot,is probably only really useful to the experiential host as long as its coupled with the kundalini,and I postulate this theory because I have the notion (vague) that the process is carefully initiated by the body so as to have optimal effect on the mind and the energy centres ,(if you feel they exist).
The descriptions of the experience of actvating the God Spot by the subjects of the experiment,do not tally,even closely, with the sensorial mind explosion and sense of unity and oneness possible.(which are in themselves,my own interpretation and not gospel)
Its like playing with a spark plug and driving a formula one racing car.I think the scientific approximation to this experience is that far apart.A real activation of the God spot through this technique,I think,would cause people to actually - change,and having done so,would seek interpretations.I think that in this subject, what Leary was doing is still years ahead of what the scientific community is doing.
If they cracked it,it would be the best ride in Disneyland,but like any heightened experience,it would be completely compulsive,and as such would have to compete with Pokemon like everything else.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
19:36 / 21.04.02
Thanks, kobol. You have an amazing way of validating these ideas, whilst putting them into some kind of perspective.
 
 
Tamayyurt
22:38 / 21.04.02
You know, this thread, Utopia's thread, and Johnny Haiku's tread also over in the Laboratory about boosting creativity using a magnetic wave helmet are very really fascinating. In a couple of years we'd all be wearing Enlightenment Visors!
 
 
Utopia
00:40 / 23.04.02
more likely we'll have tiny electrodes and sensors buried in our grey matter, but either way is fine with me. wait, enlightenment goggles, are those like beer goggles? well, seriously though, this brings up a serious question. if we had the ability to stimulate the God-spot at will, would we become a society of drooling, rapturous morons? would we need drugs anymore? this is all closer to reality than we think. after all, we do need the mechanisms to feel God, whether He/She/It be there or not. anything we experience must come from some spot in our heads (if anybody wants to argue spirituality/mentality over biology i suggest starting a new thread, but that's not an argument i'd be very willing to get into on either side). please, continue.
 
 
Ria
19:18 / 23.04.02
well I have (or had) temporal lobe epilepsy funnily enough.

too bone-ass lazy to make comment but, panarchy, I read a follow-up as to Leary's study in the psychedelic journal MAPS and the study did not impressive results statistically after many years.

if you think about it though you can predict this: Leary said that LSD de-imprints temporarily but if you go from the unimprinted state to an environment which re-imprints, like prison, you end up re-inforcing the same attitudes and responses.
 
 
Kobol Strom
20:19 / 23.04.02
Being able to reproduce sexual orgasm in the laboratory is a small step towards the Orgasmatron,but why bother if people for thousands of years have been able to raise their game through natural means?.
Heightened feelings of ecstasy and localisation of brain function aside,what is the experience of samahdi supposed to do?.We already know several possible purposes of sexual arousal and some of us can add a few more...
All I know is how it makes me feel,and I'm sure when we have the kundalini version of 'the Cosmic transducer',that it'll come in different colours and be really popular. We might come a bit closer to the answer then,the more people that can experience it the better,but I'll save my money by doing it the old fashioned way.
I haven't done LSD,so I'm not experienced enough to make a direct correlation between the two experiences.The traditional LSD experience is quite broad,qualitatively speaking and from what I've read,but the kundalini rising tends to be about an experience of single unity of all current unconscious thought into a short period of focussed experience.You have to give up your attatchments to the consequences of thoughts and sort of,let it all fall away.In a sense it does seem more like dying than going on a big trip.You have to be emotionally calm ,and the feelng of a rising energy in your spine going into the crown of your head becomes real in a way that you never really thought possible.In a sense ,it is a natural bodily answer to the seekers question,is this all there is?Surely there is something more? Well,there is,there always is.I don't want to come over all evangelical about this,if you'll pardon my language, but since we don't know the true purpose of this, all we are left with are these subjective and probably flawed reactions.
If someone comes out tomorrow with the God Device, be prepared for millions of 'Spock' type characters to appear on the streets coupled with Ivy league scientific rationalism funded by the Vatican...
I just think the after effects are more significant than just a possible distraction at 'Boardwalk and Baseball',even though that would be a laugh,others might view it more seriously,and in certain historic cases life changing.I need to really think about this one because I'm not sure what an individuals response to a spontaneous, helmet on, chocks away, enlightenment might possibly be.
The experience itself does not provide concrete proof of the existence of a deity,but that hasn't stopped virtually everyone who has had it to attach a powerful spiritual quality to it.Everything I've said is probably wrong,but the experience isn't,it seemed perfectly natural and feels just like love -like love is all there is.
 
 
cusm
12:30 / 24.04.02
LSD removed barriers, allows for connections to be made that ordinarly would not be made, and puts one in a highly impressionable state. Its quite effective in brainwashing, as not only does it de-inprint, but puts one in a suggestable state where deep imprinting can occur.

As for magick work and seeing God, its pretty easy to either see God or convince yourself that you are while tripping. It is for real? You can question any subjective experience and come to the same results. You experienced it, either way. The same can be said of using electrodes to reach the same state. It does make Kundalini work easier, I know from experience. Though if you can't do the same tricks without the drug, you haven't really learned anything from the experience and may not have actually been doing any real energy work at all. That would be the real test of such a device, if after experiencing "enlightenment" you can return to a similar state through your own will and work. I have used drugs as a guide to show me where I could go, and stive to reach that place through my own work. I imagine such a device could be used for the same purpose, but would be of little good unless you had the discipline to reach for it on your own afterwards.
 
  
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