“We cannot assume from the fact that electrical stimulation of the brain can induce OBE-like illusions that all OBEs are therefore illusions.”
University of Virginia neurologist Dr. Bruce Greyson

(CBS) In recent news a study suggests the oft-reported sensation of leaving the body during a brush with death may have a simple explanation in the body itself. The findings were published in Thursday’s issue of the journal NATURE. However, Neurologist Dr. Bruce Greyson of the University of Virginia notes that the experiment does not necessarily prove that all out-of-body experiences are illusions. As Professor of Personality Studies at the University of Virginia - the department founded by the late Dr. Ian Stevenson - Dr. Bruce Greyson is one of the foremost researchers of this compelling subject. His research includes studies done of NDEs during cardiac procedures.

Read the CBS news article.

For more on Dr. Greyson, “The Father of NDE Research”, click here.

To read and interview with the doctor click here.

From the NYT,

A Very Old Zen Master and His Art of Tough Love

What would Buddha do?

Every spring and fall, enlightenment-seekers from all over come here to find out, converging for arduous weeklong retreats at the Bodhi Manda Zen Center in a red rock canyon among the thermal springs and Indian pueblos west of Santa Fe.

Dressed in black robes, they strive to live in the moment and awaken to the oneness of everything by rising at 3 a.m. for 18-hour sessions sitting lotus-style in the zendo, or meditation hall, eating communal vegan meals in silence, chanting and taking restorative dips in the hot pools.

But mostly they come to practice with an impish, smooth-faced Japanese monk, Kyozan Joshu Sasaki Roshi, a 100-year-old Rinzai Zen master, one of the oldest in the world, who tells followers, “Excuse me for not dying.”…(Perhaps his most prominent student has been the songwriter and poet Leonard Cohen)…

Please click here for the rest.

Things are suspiciously Orwellian on our modern world…one wonders if the man was a writer or a prophet.

The Orwell Prize, Britain’s pre-eminent prize for political writing, is publishing George Orwell’s diaries as a blog. From 9th August 2008, Orwell’s domestic and political diaries (from 9th August 1938 until October 1942) will be posted in real-time, exactly 70 years after the entries were written.

Orwell’s ‘domestic’ diaries begin on 9th August 1938/2008; his ‘political’ diaries (which are further categorised as ‘Morocco’, ‘Pre-war’ and ‘Wartime’) begin on 7th September 1938/2008.

To read the Orwell Diaries click here.

Here is a little dip into the skeptic’s pool this week. It’s healthy to familiarize oneself with both sides of a story, don’t you think?

“It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring”. - Carl Sagan

Little Atoms - Radio and Podcast

(From Skeptic News)

Philip Escoffey AKA The Grey Man, is one of the UK’s top psychic illusionist/mind readers. A Psychology graduate, Philip has been earning a living as a mentalist for the last 10 years.

A confirmed skeptic, Philip is dismissive of spiritualists, mediums and astrologers. However, he has a deep academic interest in the reasons why people need to believe and is an expert in how techniques like cold-reading are employed by psychics the world over. To this end, Philip was recently seen adding a little balance to five’s Britain’s Psychic Challenge.

Philip is currently previewing his stage show “Six Impossible Things Before Dinner” in London, before embarking on a month long residency at the Pleasance Theatre Edinburgh.

For the Little Atoms site and podcast, click here. “Little Atoms is a live talk show about ideas. Each show features a guest from the worlds of science, journalism, politics, academia, human rights or the arts in conversation.”

I’ll leave my comments to myself regarding the Fed’s so-called “new phenomenon” known as thermal expansion, but you are welcome to add yours!

CNN: Conspiracy theorists ‘not swayed’ by WTC7 explanation

David Edwards and Stephen C. Webster

(Thanks to Supernatural News for this article)

What really happened at 7 W.T.C. on Sept. 11, 2001? Government investigators say they know the truth.

Fires, and not controlled demolition, caused the collapse of the tower, claims a new report from the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The institute, a federal scientific agency which promotes technical industrial standards, is the first government agency to present an all-encompassing theory of the building’s demise.

But that theory is being met with consternation among those who believe something more sinister was afoot on 9/11.

“It has been a mystery since 9/11,” said CNN’s Deborah Feyerick in a Friday report. “Why did World Trade Center building seven collapse nearly seven hours after the twin towers fell?

“Was it diesel fuel in the building? Or planted explosives, a controlled demolition of government offices as conspiracy theorists allege in films like Loose Change?”…(full article)

I continue to be bummed out about the bigfoot hoax. I am actually quite surprised by how disappointed I am!

(Props to Godlike Productions for the article)

Bigfoot hoaxers from Georgia face lawsuit

Atlanta Journal-Constitution

They claim their hoax was not for profit, but Atlanta residents Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer received $50,000 from a California Bigfoot tracker who now plans to sue to get the money back.

The two Georgia men’s tale of having found a Bigfoot carcass in the North Georgia woods really started to stink when California Bigfoot enthusiasts finally examined the body and found it was just a costume.

“There will be legal action” said Catherine Ortez, who works for Searching for Bigfoot, Inc. in in Menlo Park, Calif. The organization paid for rights to the men’s story and their find. “If this was a joke, it was very methodical and thought-out,” she said.

The Searching site was founded by Tom Biscardi, who authenticated and promoted the alleged Georgia Sasquatch. Biscardi, who did not return calls requesting comment, has his own credibility issues, according to a police officer in a nearby jurisdiction.

“He was involved in a similar hoax a few years back,” said Agent Dan Ryan with the Palo Alto (Calif.) Police Department.

In an interview with WSB-TV Wednesday night, Whitton and Dyer’s attorney, Steve Lister, blamed Biscardi for blowing his clients’ joke out of proportion.

“It started off as some YouTube videos and a Web site,” said Whitton, “We’re all about having fun.”

Whitton, 28, a Clayton County police officer for six years, was fired Tuesday after news of the hoax spread. Dyer, 31, is a former Clayton County corrections officer.

Though, according to their site, the pair are not averse to making money off their amusement. For $500, you can join them for a Bigfoot expedition. They also sell Sasquatch-related T-shirts and caps.

Repeated attempts to reach both men were unsuccessful, and Lister did not return calls seeking comment.

To watch some videos related to the hoax on Tom Biscardi’s website, click here.

Once again I am so enamored of Rob Brezsny’s Astrology Newsletter that I am compelled to post something wonderful from it…

Tom Robbins on the soul:

“If you need to visualize the soul, think of it as a cross between a wolf
howl, a photon, and a dribble of dark molasses. But what it really is, as
near as I can tell, is a packet of information. It’s a program, a piece of
hyperspatial software designed explicitly to interface with the Mystery.
Not a mystery, mind you, the Mystery. The one that can never be solved.

“To one degree or another, everybody is connected to the Mystery, and
everybody secretly yearns to expand the connection. That requires
expanding the soul. These things can enlarge the soul: laughter, danger,
imagination, meditation, wild nature, passion, compassion, psychedelics,
beauty, iconoclasm, and driving around in the rain with the top down.
These things can diminish it: fear, bitterness, blandness, trendiness,
egotism, violence, corruption, ignorance, grasping, shining, and eating
ketchup on cottage cheese.

“Data in our psychic program is often nonlinear, nonhierarchical, archaic,
alive, and teeming with paradox. Simply booting up is a challenge, if not
for no other reason than that most of us find acknowledging the
unknowable and monitoring its intrusions upon the familiar and mundane
more than a little embarrassing. More immediately, by waxing soulful you
will have granted yourself the possibility of ecstatic participation in what
the ancients considered a divinely animated universe. And on a day to day
basis, folks, it doesn’t get any better than that.”

- Tom Robbins, *Esquire* magazine, October 1993

To read Tom Robbins’ complete passage about soul, click here.

When I think of Scientology I laugh. I find it completely hilarious that an entire religion is based on science fiction - but some people would argue the same thing about a virgin birth and a resurrected savior….

Don’t mark my words, but I heard through the grapevine, about third-hand actually, that Hubbard was challenged by a friend to ‘create a religion’ to which his response was, ‘watch me!’ - voila, Scientology.

Anyway, I was interested to read in the following article that Scientologists do seem to believe in a form of reincarnation, though their ‘reincarnation’ sounds a bit less meaningful spiritually than the Buddhist beliefs, and more like a sort of changing of ones skin-clothes just for the sake of continuing along the tedious path of embodiment (no karma law)…eventually to reach a form of freedom and disembodiment after several incarnations and a heck of a lot of Scientology courses attended and paid for. This freedom place does sound a bit like nirvana but not being privy to Dianetics it is tough to speculate on the philosophical similarities. Any Scientologists out there care to enlighten us Reincarnationists? Comments are welcome.

The Afterlife for Scientologists

What will happen to Isaac Hayes’ legendary soul?

By Nina Shen Rastogi (Slate dot com)

Singer Isaac Hayes died on Sunday at the age of 65. Besides being a sex symbol, a soul-music legend, and a beloved voice-over artist, Hayes was also a dedicated Scientologist. According to his religious beliefs, what happens to Hayes now that he’s passed away?

His soul will be “born again into the flesh of another body,” as the Scientology Press Office’s FAQ puts it. The actual details of how that rebirth occurs are not fully understood by church outsiders, but some core beliefs of Scientology are that every human being is really an immortal spiritual being known as a thetan and that the “meat bodies” we inhabit are merely vessels we shed upon death. (Members of the elite church cadre known as Sea Org, for example, sign contracts that pledge a billion years of service throughout successive lives.)

When a body dies, its thetan forgets the details of the former life, though painful and traumatic images known as engrams remain rooted in its unconscious. In order to move up the path of spiritual progression—known as the Bridge to Total Freedom—one must eradicate these psychic scars, which cause a person to act fearfully and irrationally. Once a Scientologist has purged them through the counseling process known as auditing, he or she is said to be “clear.”

According to an avowed Scientology antagonist who claims, on her Web site, to present factual information typically omitted from church press materials, the official Scientology publication Celebrity announced that Hayes attained “clear” status around 2002, though it is not known whether he progressed onto the highest parts of the Bridge, the “operating thetan” levels. Details about what happens in these advanced stages remain closely guarded Scientology secrets, but at the very end of the process, thetans are supposed to gain power over the physical world; consequently, according to founder L. Ron Hubbard, they “feel no need of bodies,” ending the cycle of birth and death and becoming pure, incorporeal souls. [full story]

So, I am apparently quite gullible because the moment that segment aired on Fox about Bigfoot’s body being found by some guys in Georgia I got a huge adrenaline rush and was completely over-the-moon excited. Then I looked more carefully at the photo of the body in the icebox, read a few blogs and news articles (it even got so far as CNN) and my heart began to sink. My heart was officially sunk when I read that the press conference held on Friday was basically pointless - the dna evidence inconclusive (could have predicted that), and the gentlemen who “found” the “corpse” still vague about all of it. This article from Scientific American put the nail in the coffin for me. Really, if you think about it, any self respecting hoaxer would have done a heck of a lot better of a job than these guys. They could have at least provided the SAME story for how the body was found! I don’t care what the point of the hoax is (some folks say it’s hype for a new game or a new series on television), in fact, I think it is brilliant (and a little scary) that these people were able to generate such an instant and huge buzz with so little finesse or effort. Mostly however, I am irritated that I believed it for half a day at least. That just goes to show how much I wish Bigfoot was really out there…

Hmmmm. Maybe, just maybe, it isn’t a hoax?

This one almost slipped by me!

(I am really on the fence about UFOs. If anyone cares to convince me, please go on ahead and start working on that. Comments welcome.)

Radar Shows UFO Flying Towards Bush Ranch

Paranormal Review

STEPHENVILLE, US. The long-awaited investigation of the Stephenville, Texas, UFO sightings in January, conducted by the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), has obtained radar confirmation of a mysterious unknown object in the area whose movements match those reported by some of the witnesses.

The previously unknown radar evidence has been collected through Freedom of Information (FOI) requests made by MUFON investigators Glen Schulze and Robert Powell. It is contained in their detailed and technical 77-page report, “Stephenville Lights: A Comprehensive Radar and Witness Report Study Regarding The Events of January 8, 2008, 4pm to 8pm”, released on 10 July.

Sensationally, the radar track confirms witness reports that the unidentified object was travelling in a direct line towards President Bush’s Prairie Chapel Ranch – sometimes referred to as “the Texas [or Western] White House” – just outside Crawford. Radar lost track of it when it was only 10 miles away from the ranch…According to reputable witnesses, the object moved slowly at times but also seemed capable of accelerating to very high speeds, then slowed down or hovered. The radar data appears to corroborate these unusual characteristics.

Though there were media reports of photographic and video evidence of the sighting, these are not discussed in the report. An image contained in the report showing four lights (above) is an artist’s impression superimposed on the exact location, based on witness testimony. [Full story]

To download their full report visit MUFON’s website.