Entangled Minds

Nancy made an interesting comment about yesterday’s post (which discussed out-of-body experiences). This what she wrote:

Just one that I can remember. It happened about 2 or 3 months ago.

I was sleeping and felt myself out of my body and somewhere near my head. I could see my body sleeping. Someone was with me, but I couldn't see anyone. They were talking to me. There was a very loud buzzing and the "person" was telling me that this is what it felt like to be connected to the "whole." I felt very happy and relaxed but was worried about my body. I asked if they were sure that my body was okay, because I have had episodes of sleep apnea. But I noticed that my chest was rising and falling with my breath. I remember waking up and telling myself that I would never feel "alone" again. This euphoria lasted for several days, but eventually the feeling of connectedness went away.

Nancy’s experience seems to have been a spiritual as well as a metaphysical one (you can have one without the other -  the later helps you understand something or evolve/mature, whereas the first may not). The kind of out-of-body experiences which are actually unhelpful or harmful, are those where you just flip out of your body, and where there is no real spiritual function to it. These usually happen because you are not fully connected to the physical body, and especially the pain-body. This results is a desire to ‘escape’.

The experience of having someone near you while sleeping (even if there is no one there), is also relevant as far as some OBEs go. In Nancy’s case, the voice was probably that of a spirit guide. The easiest time for spirit guides to communicate with you is during sleep, or in trance states, because the clutter and noise of the conscious mind is shut down. Most people are just not present enough to be able to sense or hear spiritual guidance.

If you are committed to spiritual development, it is crucial to realise that you - and most people - have become hopelessly entangled in other people’s energy. 

The essential reason for entanglement is that people are not assuming full responsibility for their emotional energy. (The average level of energetic responsibility for human beings is around 4% at this time in human psycho-spiritual evolution.) Thus, this entanglement is akin to co-dependence. People take control of parts of each other’s emotional energy, especially the hurt parts from their respective childhoods. To put this another way, we give our power away to others at a metaphysical level. 

The most common players in these psychic “dramas” are our parents, siblings,  childhood friends, as well as past and present friends and lovers. Here is where we get into areas that are difficult to explain (and could get me into trouble, as this is a public blog!). Quite often the game being played out is very destructive, such as when we allow someone to manipulate our sexual energy, or where we sexually abuse someone else energetically. 

The Night They Came for Me: Out of Body, Out of Mind?

Out of body experiences are often romaticised in New Age literature. Yet the truth is that there are numerous kinds of OBEs, and some of them are more harmful than good. In today’s post I recount a few of my own OBE’s including a rather interesting experience where I was pulled out of my body and operated on by a team of “psychic surgeons”.

As I reported in my book Sage of Synchronicity, when I first began to get into meditation and explore other ways of knowing in the 1990s, I began to have a lot of out-of-body experiences. It seemed that every time I went sleep, or had an afternoon nap, I would go flying off. For me, the OBEs began with a whooshing type sound, and I would feel my energy moving out of my body in fast and furious fashion. These were primarily kinesthetic experiences, characterised by the physical sensation of movement. I didn’t see myself floating above my body, as in some near-death experiences.

There were often visual aspects to my OBEs, though. Since the physical eyes are not used during these times, the mind will often construct an image of what is “seen”. I eventually realised that I could not take what I “saw” during OBEs on face value.

Often there was no visual component at all, just the sense of flying through blackness. I suspect that my consciousness had dislocated from the body, and was moving through a “nearby” astral plane.

There were times, though, when I saw quite clearly where I was, though it was not always somewhere I recognised. One time I left my body and found myself flying over power lines above a road, dipping up and down with the rise and fall of the lines. It was like riding a roller coaster ride. Later I read Robert Monroe’s Journeys out of the Body, and noted that during his self-directed OBEs he was sometimes attracted to electricity. I’m not quite sure why this is, but I do know that electrical fields greatly affect consciousness fields., and often not in a positive ways (hint, never sit a laptop computer on your lap – one of the worst things you can do to your energy field). More about that in later post.

Another time, when I was having a drama (read “conflict”) with a friend of mine, I found myself flying out of my body, and descending into his bedroom, where I grabbed him by the neck, and started strangling him.

They Come to Feast

 You may have read about Stephen Hawking’s new documentary, Stephen Hawking’s Universe. Hawking has warned us to be careful of contact with alien species. They might be very, very nasty.

.. a few life forms could be intelligent and pose a threat. Hawking believes that contact with such a species could be devastating for humanity.

He suggests that aliens might simply raid Earth for its resources and then move on: “We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet. I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach.”

He concludes that trying to make contact with alien races is “a little too risky”. He said: “If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans.”

It is an interesting contention. Would aliens want to dominate and control, exploit, rape, and colonise? Maybe they will set up alien-type fast-food outlets.

Piled Higher and Deeper

I'll get to that later... much later  

    On my desk there is a little cartoon which I have drawn. It is a mock newspaper headline, and under it the head of a “grey” alien. The headline reads:

  Aliens deliver first vital message to Earth

    There is a speech bubble emerging from the appropriately tiny mouth of the alien, and the following words are uttered as the first inter-galactic wisdom from our interstellar friends.

    “Doing something unimportant well does not make it important.”

    It’s actually a quote from Timothy Ferris’ book, The 4-Hour Work Week (which I reviewed on 22c+ a few weeks back).

    This statement has particular significance in education systems in many countries. Policy makers and educators set curricula that are often meaningless and irrelevant. They then set about rewarding students who “succeed” in them.

     And they love to pile it on. Take a look at the photo above. I took it at a certain school where I used to work in Hong Kong. This is an actual teacher’s desk; not his second desk, nor the desk in the corner where a teacher might pile all the stuff he never uses. At one time there used to be a teacher at this desk. Then one day he just disappeared under all the crap, and no one ever saw him again.

Video Review: Shenk's "Genius"

Last week I reviewed David Shenk's The Genius in All of Us. Here is the video version.

What will be the Next Big Idea?

People are getting smarter with every generation, according to IQ testing. In part, this is because of revolutionary concepts like "evolution", "falsifiable" and even "percentage". We are so used to these ideas that we don't realise that previous generations were barely aware of them. So, what will be the next big idea that makes us all smarter, and how can you leap frog everyone to be smarter first?

People are getting smarter, and that’s a scientific fact. Skeptics might protest that people can’t even get their cash from the ATM machine in less than ten minutes. They might point out that there is a privately sponsored museum in The USA which shows Jesus riding a dinosaur. And they might lament that you can’t have a conversation with anybody without their feeble attention being diverted by an incoming sms. But they are wrong – at least according to the Flynn effect.

He gets in His early morning ride before breakfast

As I pointed out in my review of David Shenk’s The Genius in All of Us, the Flynn effect is that curious feature which emerged from the history of intelligence testing, namely that IQ scores keep going up with each generation - about three points on average. Fascinatingly, ninety-eight percent of today’s population will score higher than their counterparts from 100 years ago. The Flynn effect is named after psychologist J.R. Flynn, who popularised the idea. 

One factor which Flynn (and David Shenk) suggests is behind the Flynn effect, is the much improved capacity for abstract thinking. All you have to do is look at a World War One propaganda poster, and you have to wonder how anybody could actually be influenced by the image and words. 

 J.R. Flynn

Flynn points to the way that science and philosophy have enhanced the language of educated people “by giving them words and phrases that greatly increase their critical acumen.” He thus sees the world as being divided into pre-scientific and post-scientific thinking, the latter being the more deeply critical approach to knowledge. The psychologist referred to these emerging concepts as “shorthand abstractions” (or SHAs).

So what are these SHA’s? Just below, I will list them. However, as you go through these, take a leaf out of Flynn’s book, and think about them critically.

The Genius in All of Us

This is my review of the new book by David Shenk, The Genius in All of Us. I think it is an excellent and important book, and a must-read for all those passionate about human potential and expanded human futures. However, it is a rather long review, so for those who want to short version, I have highlighted in bold the parts of the text which I consider most important.

“This book is not a dispassionate presentation of all scientific points of view. Instead it embraces the arguments of the Interactionists, whose views I came to trust most after much reading, conversation and consideration.”(p. 148)

So writes David Shenk in The Genius in All of Us, and true to his word he is. Shenk’s book is not a strictly scientific investigation of intelligence or giftedness, but a personal presentation for the case that intelligence is highly malleable, and that it emerges from the interaction of genes and environment. His case differs from many mainstream representations of intelligence in that he finds environment plays a far greater role than  many intelligence theorists acknowledge. Intelligence, states Shenk, is a process, more so than a discrete entity which sits in the physical structure of the brain. He writes:

“…intelligence isn’t fixed. Intelligence isn’t general. Intelligence is not a thing. Intelligence is a dynamic, diffuse and ongoing process.” (p.42)

New workshop, Living Your Bliss

I have a new workshop coming up very soon (Saturday, May 1st). Entitled "Living Your Bliss", it's all about finding your passion in work and living. I'm presenting it for the Law of Attraction group here in Hong Kong. It's free, so it's a great chance to learn more about the kinds of things I have written in my book "Sage of Synchronicity". You'll also meet some other interesting people, which is just as important. You can find out more about it here (with a little info from the site to follow, below).

Marcus

http://www.meetup.com/LAW-OF-EQUAL-ATTRACTIONS/calendar/13169986/

Have you ever felt that you had a greater calling, but never been able to put your finger on what it is?

According to the Law of Attraction, EACH of us has the ability to create the life of our dreams.

When we find our destiny and living our path of Bliss, we become a magnet that will be able to attract all that we desire.

In this workshop, Dr Marcus T. Anthony, author of "Secrets of Synchronicity" and "Integrated Intelligence" will show you:

* How to identify and live your true calling, or your “Bliss”, by following your excitement, and how to stay on purpose once you know what it is.

* How to find the right inner voice/feeling, how to draw upon an infinite source of knowledge and wisdom, and use it in your everyday life.

* The real secret about manifestation, one the New Age won't tell you.

So come along, share with the group and be inspired, be energized by everyone's positive energy and share experiences!

Obama: Saviour or Anti-Christ?

On my previous blog on mindfutures.com. I wrote about President Obama’s visit to Asia, some five months ago. Obama’s visit created great excitement in this a part of the world, and as a person who writes about Deep Futures, I was most interested in the way that Obama was being almost deified by many people here. It wasn’t that much different from some of the scenes in the US when Obama came to power. Before I make any further comment, here’s a few extracts from that post. (note: many in China were hoping Obama would somehow affirm Chinese policies in Tibet and Xinjiang, where there has been ethnic unrest in recent years).

Obama is perhaps more qualified than any other western leader in modern times to herald a new era of global unity, a prosperous future in every sense. He is the great black hope. For others, especially for the more conservative in the US, he is the devil in saviour’s clothing. He is a “communist”, even “Hitler”. So, which is it? Is he saint, or Satan?

How to Make Monday Disappear Forever

A Hong Kong commuter arrives for work this morning

This morning I was traveling to work on the subway here in Hong Kong, and looked around at an all-too-common sight. As I looked up from my book, I saw the long, joyless faces of human beings being whisked off to the gas chambers. Either that, or they were facing Monday morning, something even worse. In fact, truth be told, judging by the facial expressions of commuters, most days are Mondays in Hong Kong, for most people. Something happened in recent Hong Kong history, whereby people traded the excitement of following their Bliss for the security of conformity and certainty. In short, they sold their souls for paychecks.

This is by no means a situation that is unique to Hong Kong. You can see the dreaded Monday look in many an eye in many a city right across the developed world. Hong Kong, however, is a little special, in that I’m sure that there was a special agreement made somewhere whereby Monday to Thursday were renamed. So now we have Monday, Monday 2, Monday 3 and and Monday 4. Then, Friday has been renamed “Saturday minus one.” and Sunday is now “Shit, here come Monday again!” They let Saturday stay Saturday, because they didn’t want any riots.

Now, here’s a little secret, one that has been suppressed by governments the world over (The Hong Kong government tried to stop this blog post from going ahead, but I have managed to sneak it in). And the secret is…