Sociology, Psychology, Science, and Spirituality

Elizabeth A. Phelps of Yale University, Janet Metcalfe of Columbia University and Margaret Funnell, a postdoctoral fellow at Dartmouth College, have found that the two hemispheres differ in their ability to process new data. When presented with new information, people usually remember much of what they experience. When questioned, they also usually claim to remember things that were not truly part of the experience. If split-brain patients are given such tests, the left hemisphere generates many false reports. But the right brain does not; it provides a much more veridical account.” (Gazzaniga, 1998: 54).

Alright so in my last blog post I had some things to say about a neuroanatomist’s interpretation of her trauma induced “right brain experience.” What happened basically was a stroke shut down “something’ in the left hemisphere. This “shut down” subsequently opened the scientist up to a rather dramatically different way of looking at things. The variation from the “normal” experience of the scientist was striking and while she went on and on in effusive terms about the “glory” of the experience, I suggested that it was inappropriate to view her experience as anything other than as a kind of “awakening inner child” experience. After years of left brain dominance and right atrophy, suddenly the censors were turned off and the “child” (the higher processing facilities of the right brain) where exposed to reality with obvious and predictable results, i.e., childlike apprehension of reality and childlike affect

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http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/229

So, a couple days ago a friend of mine sent me a video to view. The video is a video of a neuroanatomist by the name of Jill Bolte who had a “left brain” stroke. As she describes in her video, the effects of the stroke were rather dramatic shutting down her left brain in a pre-emptory fashion leaving her, as she describes throughout the course of her video presentation, in the “la la land” of the right hemisphere.

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Today I want to talk a little bit about the nature of your physical body and through this, I want to encourage you to stop identifying with your body as if it was your identity and start seeing it for what it really is. You see, as many spiritually inclined writers have pointed out over the millennia, your physical body is not your identity. Your physical body is not who you are. You are not a collection of cells and neurons and fluids haphazardly put together in a freakish accident of nature.

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Ever since I started writing my mystical books back in 2002, and ever since I published my chakra meditation, <a href=”http://www.michaelsharp.org/meditations/the-great-invocation/”>The Great Invocation</a>, I’ve been keeping an informal eye on the impact that chakra meditation and the revision of concepts and archetypes can have on individuals. It’s been quite dramatic. Although I have only anecdotal observations at this point, I can see that the individuals who practice the Great Invocation experience some rather profound personal and spiritual growth. Anecdotally, I’ve seen individuals overcome serious psychological distress, and step into a more confident and empowered existence, merely by activating their physical unit and stepping through the muck and the mud raised up by the invocation process.

Watching this process unfold either in private consultation, or in our <a href=”http://lightworker.michaelsharp.org”>public online forums</a>, it recently struck me that the Great Invocation has therapeutic potential. Working with people in a client based setting, you can have people do the Great Invocation (it takes only a moment or two several times a day) and then, as their “issues” and fears, past traumas and oppressions, are “brought to light,” you can work with them on processing these issues. Considering how difficult it can be to get people to recover repressed materials, the Great Invocation can be an incredible therapeutic boon allowing psychoanalytically oriented therapists to systematically uncover all sorts of repressed psychological trauma.

With the potential utility of the Great Invocation in mind, we have begun working on clinical trials of the Great Invocation and it’s potential utility in psychotherapeutic  practice. The hope is that we will be able to demonstrate the psychotherapeutic utility  of this meditative practice, and provide a new modality with which to work with clients in a psychodynamic, humanistic, or transpersonal practice.  We’ll be posting case study updates, and theoretical foundations, at <a href=”http://casestudy.michaelsharp.org”>casestudy.michaelsharp.org</a>.

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Egotistical, polysyllabic, multi-metaphoric obsfucation (EPMO) occurs when a diminished and damaged ego uses unnecessary linguistic or metaphoric puffery to convey to others that it is superior in some way, or that it understands something that it does not. You often find EPMO in literary, academic, and/or intellectual circles. Linguistic EPMO is more common than metaphoric EPMO though metaphoric EPMO does exist, especially in artistic and/or esoteric circles.

The only know cure (and defense) for EPMO is a good slap in the face with a fish. Failing that, giggles and some childish finger pointing often does the trick. If you are a perpetrator of EPMO, you can self treat by repeating, several times, with deep intonation, bended head, and downcast eyes.

“Huck mir nisht a chynick, and I don’t mean efsher.”