The concept is based on several key theoretical assumptions.

1. Consciousness is totally independent of the physical unit.
2. The human body (in fact all living bodies) are containers/vehicles for consciousness.
3. The amount of consciousness in the physical unit is not fixed.
4. The physical unit has a certain capacity to contain consciousness.
5. Full capacity can only be obtained under optimal nutritional, physical, social, psychological, economic, and political conditions.

Like the psychological idea of IQ (i.e. intelligence quotient), it should be possible to operationalize CQ once the characteristics of consciousness are properly elaborated (for a basic elaboration see my Book of Light). Following identification of the characteristics of consciousness, we would then look for expressions of consciousness in the body. When we observed these expressions, we would infer a higher CQ. A measure of CQ might be validated against measures of psychological well being, healthy physical functioning, intelligence (broadly defined), adaptability, and authentic spiritual understanding.

CQ is a highly sociological concept. While there may be a genetic component that determines how easily an individual physical unit can attain full capacity, the dominant influence on CQ is environmental. Negative experiential precursors lead to improper development of the physical unit and a concomittment reduction in capacity. Likewise, positive experiential precursors lead to expansion of consciousness in the physical unit and maximization of capacit.

Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, and his stipulation that “self actualization” and transcendence only occur when the needs of the physical unit are met, can be read as support for the idea of variable CQ dependent on optimal external conditions. When optimal conditions are met, consciousness begins to expand into the physical unit. The process of expansion of consciousness into the physical unit (i.e. elevation of CQ) was identified by Maslow as a “peak” or transcendent experience. That the elevation of CQ in the physical unit was not more permanent is attributable to the sub optimal economic, political, and social conditions that exist even in so called “developed” nations where we find, despite material wealth, high rates of psychological distress.

Entheogens may be seen as temporarily, and forcefully, enhancing the CQ of the physical unit. In cases where the physical unit is heavily damaged and/or traumatized, entheogen may be dangerous and may require expert guidance and careful attention to Set and Setting.

The political and religious implications of the concept CQ are profound. Within the rubric of CQ I would argue that spiritual enlightenment (i.e., the significant and permanent elevation of CQ) is dependent on the creation of social, political, and economic conditions that support healthy development and operation of the physical unit.

Related Concepts

1. The Water Glass Metaphor - http://www.thespiritwiki.com/index.php/Negative_Experiential_Precursors
2. Physical Unit - http://www.thespiritwiki.com/index.php/Physical_Unit
3. Capacity - http://www.thespiritwiki.com/index.php/Capacity
4. Fabric of Consciousness - http://www.thespiritwiki.com/index.php/Fabric_of_Consciousness
5. Crown Chakra - http://www.thespiritwiki.com/index.php/Crown_Chakra
6. Negative Experiential Precursors - http://www.thespiritwiki.com/index.php/Negative_Experiential_Precursors
7. Entheogens - http://www.thespiritwiki.com/index.php/Entheogens
8. Set and Setting - http://www.thespiritwiki.com/index.php/Set_and_Setting

* For a definition of consciousness (or as I like to call is The Fabric), see my Book of Light Volume One. [download PDF]

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

Now in my previous blog post, and in fact in the first person account of “right brain exposure,” there was a lot of discussion about right brain lateralization and I would like to explore that topic a bit more in subsequent blog posts. However, before we get into that I want to share a neuropsychological experiment with you. This was an experiment on brain lateralization. In this experiment researchers took two groups of individuals. Some had a transected corpus callosum (i.e., that part of the brain that connects the right and left hemisphere) and the other group were “intact normals.” (i.e., intact corpus callosum). The experimental participants were exposed to a learning learning test. This test involved a simple task visual task. Two lights were presented on a computer screen, one above the other, and the subjects were to guess which light was going to come on next, either the top or the bottom. (Wolford, 2000) .

Now in this experiment the lights were to appear randomly on the computer screen, but the top light was to appear 80% of the time while the bottom light would only come on 20% of the time. There was no other pattern to the display of lights other than this random, and rather obvious, pattern of distribution. And it was obvious! In fact, the pattern was so obvious that all subjects in the experiment quickly figured it out. That is, all subjects quickly realized that the top light was coming on a lot more frequently than the bottom line.

So what happened?

Well, the conditions were, guess correctly and so that’s what the subjects tried to do. As it turns out, intact controls (intact corpus callosum) and subjects where the stimuli was to the left brain only, performed with an average 68% accuracy.

Not bad I suppose.

Slightly better than random guessing and the left brain could be forgiven, if it weren’t for the dramatically superior performance of the right brain in this task. Contrary to the rather dismal performance of the linguistic, analytic, left brain, the right brain attained a spectacular 80% correct.

WOW!

How did it do that?

Well of course this is pure speculation but if you were to ask me I would say that the right brain, more closely connected to the Fabric of Consciousness than the left brain, and full of insight into the nature of the situation, quickly learned that the best strategy to maximize correct responses (the condition set by the experimenter) was to simply push the top button all the time. By choosing this seemingly “simple” strategy, the right brain guaranteed itself an 80% on the experimenter’s binary exam. Pretty amazing when you think about it.

And why the poor performance of the poor left brain?

Ah well that’s the rub, isn’t it.

The researchers explained it by suggesting that the left brain “distributes its responses between the two alternatives…despite the fact that this is a suboptimal strategy.” (Roser and Gazzaniga, 2004: 58. emphasis added).

And why does the left brain distribute its responses in this way?

Well I would say that it’s because, despite all the analytic, linguistic, and logical grandeur of the left hemisphere, the left brain, which is modularized for certain types of tasks, lacks basic insight. It tends to get lost in the details of things, turned around in circles, “looking for order and reason, even when there is none–which leads it continually to make mistakes. It tends to overgeneralize, frequently constructing a potential past as opposed to a true one.” (Gazzaniga, 1998: 54). In other words it’s good at some things, but incredibly dumb at other things.

This can be a bit of a problem for people who have become convinced that the left brain’s logical and rational capacities are recent evolutionary adaptations that signal an emergence of human rational superiority. This is classical thinking and it underlies a lot of the neurological thinking on lateralization. The idea that human rationality and logic, i.e., left brain functionality is the sine qua non of evolutionary advance is generally accepted. Experimenters would agree. Roser and Gazzaniga (2004) take the poor performance of the left hemisphere to be evidence of the “hypothesis-generating” nature of the left hemisphere. To me, it’s a strange conclusion. How one can conclude that the left hemisphere is all about the generation of hypothesis while faced with the clear failure of the left hemisphere to generate an adequate hypothesis!

And it was a simple task!

Yet, despite the simplistic nature of the task, the left brain just doodled along in confusion while the right slammed down a home run. What’s worse I think is that to bolster the idea that the left brain is good at thinking, researchers go on to dismiss the abilities of the right brain comparing it to rat thinking and suggesting that the right hemisphere “…does not try to interpret its experience and find deeper meaning. It continues to live only in the thin moment of the present–and to be correct 80 percent of the time.”(Gazzaniga, 1998: 54).

Hmm.

If you ask me, that’s a confabulation.

It’s the scientists left brain talking. The left brain, the one that controls the mouth, is looking at a task that it is inferior at and suggesting an interpretation that maintains the illusion of its superiority.

Confabulation.

It is an established neurological fact!

Whenever neurological subjects are exposed to some kind of deficit, they confabulate. “…when asked to explain why it is attempting to figure the whole sequence, [it] always comes up with a theory, no matter how outlandish”(Gazzaniga, 1998: 54).

It’s true!

So what does all this have to do with our discussion of the spiritual experience of the right brain. First of all, while I wouldn’t want to dis the left brain completely here, I would want to point out that the idea that the left brain’s linguistic, categorizing, “hypothesis generating” rationality is in any way superior to the right brain is incorrect. We have a clear and rather stunning example of left brain incompetence. It is reasonable to question whether or not the right brain is indeed inferior in any way to the left hemisphere, especially in the simplistic way that our neuro-scientist presented in her analysis. The right brain obviously has some smarts and these have to be taken into account.

Second, the research and commentary here really highlights the inadequacy of Dr. B’s account. You might be forgiven if, after hearing Dr. B. effusive account, you think the right is nothing but a “LA LA” space for Nirvanic Junkies. But that wouldn’t be true. The right brain has many functions which are important not only to survival on this earth, but also (as we will see) to the full expression of Spirit (a.k.a. consciousness) in matter. Something that isn’t even intimated in the original account.

I believe I want to explore this for a while. Next time I would like to take a look at the neurological truths of brain lateralization. I know the mythology of lateralization. It’s a recent evolutionary advance that put humans “one step ahead” of their animal cousin. It’s the left brain that’s important and nothing much has been lost in our rampage towards the modern world. But what’s the truth of lateralization (mystical or scientific) and how to do we understand “the brain” in relation to the ontological primacy spirit. From there we’ll move on to discuss the function of the brain and CNS in relation to the “la la” lands of Spirit.

Until then,

ms

References

Gazzaniga, Michael S. (1998). The Split Brain Revisited. Scientific American. 279(Jul98): 50-56.

Metcalfe, Janet., Funnell, Margaret, and Gazzaniga, Michael S. Right-hemisphere Memory Superiority: Studies of a Split-brain Patient. Psychological Science. 6(3): 157-164.

Phelps E.,. and Gazzaniga, M.S. (1992). Hemispheric Differences in Mnemonic Processing. The Effects of Hemisphere Interpretation. Neuropsychologia. 30: 293-297.

Pinet, John P. (2007). Basics of Biopsychology. New York: Pearson.

Roser, Mathew and Gazzinga, Michael S. (2004). Automatic Brains–Interpretive Minds. Current Directions in Psychological Science. 13(2): 56-59

Wolford, G., Miller, M.B., Gazzaniga, M. (2000). The Left Hemisphere’s role in Hypothesis Formation. Journal of Neuroscience 20, RC64.

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.

Her descriptions of lateralized brain function are interesting. According to Dr. Bolte, the right hemisphere “thinks in pictures” and “learns through movement.” It is kinesthetic, emotional, and, if you go by her descriptions, childlike in its apprehension of the physical realities of this world. I can certainly agree with that, but perhaps infantile would be a better description. Despite the fact that she is having a stroke, this “child brain” within her seems unable to conceptualize the danger and unable to take appropriate steps that might prevent the termination of Dr. B’s physical existence. Terrible. And perhaps frightening to anybody looking on. The incompetence of the right brain in this case is positively biblical in proportion.

Thank God for the left brain though. Without what was left of her left brain during the stroke, without the detail oriented, linear, categorizing, rationality of the left brain, Dr. Bolte would most certainly be dead. The right brain couldn’t even get through a stack of phone numbers it was so incompetent in this 3D reality.

At the end of the presentation Dr. B. is weeping. “It is beautiful there” she cries, recollecting the beauty of the reality she has left, and speaks in mystical terms about the wonderful Nirvana that everyone can attain, she says, if they just “choose” to be there in the moment.

I got to be honest with you. I grimaced as I sat through this. For me this narrative outlines several problems that we, as scientists and individuals interested in spirituality and spiritual expression, have to overcome if we are to properly understand all the “shifting” that is going on in this world. Allow me to outline these problems.

Problem one relates to the good doctors understanding of the right brain and it’s action. going into too much theoretical detail about the right brain, how it connects to the Fabric of Consciousness, and how it’s related to left brain, let me just say that the image of the right brain that the good doctor gives us is an image of an immature right brain. It is an image of child’s first conscious experiences in this world. It should be obvious from her description. The oceanic feeling (interestingly enough, something that is typical of the perinatal experiences of the immature fetal system (Grof, 1976′ 1985)), the inability to function in the world, difficulty attending to the requirements of survival, all these things which she experienced as her left brain functions collapsed are the reactions of infantile child. My four year exhibits more “right brain” maturity this.

Think about it.

We live in a left brain dominated world. We live in a world which, as I outline elsewhere, is antagonistic and hostile to right brain experience. Not only do we traumatize the sensitive right brain, but we give it no room to develop. We emphasize linear/practical thinking in our socialization process, devalue the holistic, artistic, metaphoric, sensibilities of the right brain (as the good doctor does when she calls the processing capabilities of the right hemisphere “la la land.”) and generally provide no space for the practical exploration and development of right brain capacities. We, as a world, are hostile to right brain experiences and although it is improving, I still remember a time when kids where slapped if they used their left hand to right with.

You can see the truth of what I’m saying here when you critically examine the narrative account of the good Dr. B. Arguably, Dr. B. is the professional epitome of left brain hyper-dominance and it shows in her atrophied right brain’s incapacity to manage, at an adult level, the trauma that she is experiencing.

The question we need to be asking is, is this incapacity natural? Does her description of her child like right brain represent the epitome of right brain potential?

No.

It is simply the result of her own undeveloped right hemisphere. Which brings me to the second problem which is scientists talking about spirit. If you open your intuition here you’ll see, there’s a big problem. As I argue elsewhere, the planet is currently going through a “great awakening.” This great awakening comes down, basically, to a full activation of the Crown Chakra. Since most of us already have activated left hemispheres, this means, practically, that our experiences of awakening will initially put us in touch with an immature right brain. Not so much a problem I suppose if there is good guidance around to help you properly interpret (for your hyper developed left brain) what you are experiencing and provide good guidance on developing and maturing the right hemisphere, but it definitely is a problem when we start listening to “single experience” scientists who present an immature spiritual sensibility as if it is the full potential of right brain processing.

It’s a big problem.

I mean, what psychologist in their right mind would look at a new born infant for an assessment of the potential of a properly matured, healthy adult body. Answer? No psychologist. If you want to know what a healthy adult body is capable of, you don’t point to the infant as exemplar. Unless you don’t know any better, that’s just ridiculous. Yet, this is exactly what Dr. B. is doing. Holding a dead brain as a symbol of her expertise (a fascinating little subliminal message of authority sent straight into the “picture processing centers” of the naive right brains of her audience members), she then points to her infantile right brain and says, this is what you are.

But trust me on this. This is not what you are. The bottom line is, her narrative does not represent the full potential of right brain processing and it’s important to recognize this. Otherwise, you’ll find yourselves locked in a childlike apprehension of the possibilities of spiritual awakening (and of reality for that matter) and that’s no good for many reasons, which I won’t go into here. In your own awakening work, you want to move beyond these simplistic representations in order to expand and mature the capacities of your right brain. You don’t take as a given, or as exemplar, the immature god-child. Progress in spiritual awakening will require right brain therapy and development. Not hard, but quite essential, especially if you want to re-enter “nirvana.” Unlike what the good Dr. says (and in complete denial of the empirical reality of her own experience), it’s not a simple matter of choice. As long as the right brain remains weak, accessing it will require some form of left brain suppression which, if I’m being honest, makes about as much sense as treppaning, i.e., poking a hole in the left hemisphere just so you can experience the inner god-child of the right once again. Interesting approach, but ultimately counterproductive!

And it’s not just a question of developing the right brain. There is a question of safety here. In her experience Dr. B. was quite lucky. The initial awakening of the god-child was not traumatic. But it could have been. As I said earlier, this world is hostile to that inner god-child and it only takes a little bit of time for the god-child (which has, even in undeveloped form, a level of insight quite beyond anything even the fully developed left brain is capable of) to become aware of the hostility and when it does, it will react like any threatened child will. With fear, regression, withdrawal, trauma and lack of comprehension. Of course the left brain will observe this, encode the experience, and say to itself (with more or less force) “I’m not letting that happen again.” At which point it will begin to build a wall to protect it self (because it sees “itself” as the sum total of the organism). If this goes on to long, the wall will become basically insurmountable under normal conditions and will require, as is clearly exemplified by the Dr. B. case study, that the left brain be shut down temporarily. In this context, Dr. B.’s advice to “just choose” can be seen clearly for what it is. Naive, uninformed, and potentially damaging to the possibility of strengthening the processing capabilities of the right brain (i.e., fully waking up).

So the point of all this?

Well, there’s a couple of points. Point one. If you are scientist investigating spiritual phenomenon, right brain thinking, the ground of being, spiritual awakening, or whatever, please consider that you may be looking at immature examples of spiritual potential. Based on what I’ve been saying here, even the so called Peak Experiences and mystical experiences (often entheogen induced) often investigated by psychologists may merely be immature expressions of an undeveloped spiritual connection. Please do not present these immature experiences as exemplars of what a fully developed Physical Unit, (i.e., body and mind) is capable of in the realm of spiritual expression.

Point two, be critical. If you are a spiritual seeker, try and recognize when you are dealing with an immature account, or with a “teacher” who remains “spiritually naive” about the “higher realities.” I’m not saying don’t listen to people. They may have good information for you. But by the same token, they may also be limiting your understanding, appreciation, and forward movement because of their own naivety and their own misinformed presumption to spiritual wisdom. At least consider the possibility

Finally, I’d like to make a comment about dualistic thinking. In science, in this world, we have this tendency to think of everything in terms of this and that. Left and right, up and down, good and bad, black and white. We live in a world of difference, we are told. But do we really? Detail oriented categorization of the world is a something the left brain does but does this represent reality? No. This represents and image of reality imposed on the “ground of experience” as a result of unbalanced development of the Crown Chakra. The “right brain” doesn’t see things that way and neither would the left brain if the right brain had a stronger influence . If the right brain wasn’t so atrophied, we would not see the world as figure, ground or as discrete particle. We would see the world more for what it is, a wave function, a swirling hot pot of energy that we exist in in an eternal now and over which we have total conscious control. Foreign thinking to the unbalanced left, but just common sense to a developed right brain.

Getting back to the discussion of the good Dr. B. We must remind ourselves of the corpus callosum and the potential for proper hemispheric balance. Proper communication between hemispheres is not given. Like the facilities of reading, writing, and rythmetic, the capacities of the right brain need nourishment. Unfortunately, they normally don’t get it. We currently live in what I might like to call a dictatorship of the left brain. Powerful, capable, linear, in control, the left brain dominates our perception of reality and easily suppresses the processing and information provided by the right brain. There is no communication, there is no balance and as a result, the right brain is shut out of experience. Being shut out, it never develops. Like a child lost in a time warp, confined to the grayness of Sheol, the god child inside sits and waits, undeveloped, uninformed, unformed, and immature, waiting for some kind of trauma to the shut the left brain down so that it may share, however briefly, it’s unique perspective and power. Under these conditions, is it any wonder that our apprehension of wider realities is confined to moments of physical and psychological trauma, to Near Death Experiences, to entheogen induced enhancements?

Is there any wonder that most common thing the naive individual says when they confront these wider perceptions, “we have no words?” Of course we have no words. How can an infant describe to an adult it’s experience. It has no words! But does this mean it cannot develop the words? Does this mean the experiences of the right brain are destined to be indescribable, noetic, and untouchable by the linear left brain.

Well, as a practicing mystic and someone who spent a lot of time developing the right brain by answer is an unequivocal no. You can develop the right brain. You can connect it, as an equal, to the left brain, and you can move forward with a sophisticated analysis and science grounded not in a dictatorial brain but in a balanced left/right that will lead, if I may be forgiven for the prosaic conclusion, to an entirely new world of scientific knowledge of the created cosmos.

Note

“Time tube” image from my Book of Life: Ascension and the Divine World Order

Further Reading

Sharp, Michael (2006). The Book of Light: The Nature of God, the Structure of Consciousness, and the Universe Within You.

Sharp, Michael (2007). My Mystical Big Toe: A Strong Theory of Consciousness and Creation

Sharp, Michael (2008). Entheogens. The SpiritWiki: http://www.thespiritwiki.com/index.php/Entheogens [Accessed: March 17, 2008]

References

Grof, Stanislav (1985). Beyond the Brain: Birth, Death, and Transcendence in Psychotherapy. New York. SUNY Press.

Grof, Stanislav (1976). Realms of the Unconscious: Observations from LSD Research. New York: Viking Press.

You are much more than this.

You are immortal consciousness and your body is merely a physical vehicle for your immortal consciousness. Your body is like the car that you get into in the morning to go to work. It is a fine machine, to be sure, and it is finely crafted and highly capable, but it is a machine nonetheless. Just like the car you get into to drive to work, that body of your’s (which you also “get into” in the mornings when you wake up) normally cannot do anything or go anywhere without the presence of your higher consciousness. (Sharp, 2007).
It’s true

You’re body is a mere vehicle for higher consciousness and although it is finely tuned and highly capable, it is nothing more than a vehicle. You don’t end when it ends and you can replace it when and where you want.

Now the problem I want to talk about today is the fact that most of us tend to identify with our bodies. That is, we see ourselves as our vehicle. We think that we are our physical body. We associate our thinking with our brain and believe our mind provides our identity. We believe, in short, that we are the flesh.

I know this is bringing no earth shattering revelation to you. However, it is quite hard to describe this in a dramatic enough way because even when we read the words “I identify with my body”, we often don’t understand their full impact. We don’t see past the words. We don’t place our self in the perspective of Spirit. We simply read the words and, because we are already identified with the body, unconsciously and uncritically connect with the statement. Yes, I am my body. I am a nationality, a gender, a color, an age, in a category of existence and that’s who I am. Period.

It’s much like if you were a fish trying to imagine what it would be like on dry land. For the fish, there’s no reference point and no recent experience and so the phrase, “you should try dry land”, or any other descriptive phrase designed to bring the fish in touch with the other reality, is totally meaningless. It has no experiential impact.

So, what’s the big deal? What’s the problem with identifying heart and soul with your body? Well, the problem is simply this. As long as you identity with your body, you identity with a profound set of limitations that have been imposed on you by the social and cultural conditioning that you go through. It is not that difficult to get your head around this. Basically, all this means is that we assume the characteristics of our physical vehicle. If our body is black, we assume the characteristics of blackness as defined by our culture. If our body is female, we assume the characteristics of femaleness as defined by our culture. If our body is old, we assume the characteristics of oldness as defined by our culture. This is an extremely limiting exercise. When we identity with our body and the definitions of it, we put ourselves in narrowly defined boxes that severely limit possibility.

Again, this may not seem strange to you because you identity with your body as if it’s the only thing available to you. But to an outside observer that isn’t attached to the physical body like you are, believe me, it is quite strange. You can perhaps get an idea of how strange it is by imagining for a moment that you have identified with your car so strongly that you actually think you are the car. One day you simply got up, got in your car, and in a fit of mental madness “became the vehicle”. Now, you’re stuck. You don’t get out of it and all interaction with the universe is through the capabilities and within the boundaries of the physical vehicle.

What would that look like to a person (consciousness) watching from the outside?

Well, the person watching from the outside could still see you and talk to you, but the potentials of your existence would be severely circumscribed. You’d live a limited and two-dimensional existence. As a car, you wouldn’t be able to go into houses, you wouldn’t be able to climb mountains, you wouldn’t be able to play music (in fact you couldn’t even listen to music because you wouldn’t have ears), etc. Your existence and your potential would be defined by the limits of your vehicle. Sure, there would be some things that would be fun. You could drive fast and take sharp corners. But, by and large, you’d experience a limited form of existence. To somebody standing outside the vehicle and not sharing in your quaint delusion, it would look pretty strange and ultimately be self-defeating.

It is exactly the same way with your physical body. Your physical body is a mere vehicle and although it provides a great service in terms of its ability to drive you around this physical world, really, when compared with the potential of your consciousness and the reality that it inhabits, it’s very limited and two dimensional.

The truth is, your body is really only a shadow of your true potential. You are capable of so much more than the possibilities provided by your body.

So, what is your true potential? What are you capable of, really?

Good questions and I can’t answer in any detail here. Not because I don’t want to answer but because the truth is so far beyond what you have been told that there’s just no room to discuss it in a short little article like this.

But don’t get me wrong.

Setting the record straight is not that hard. It doesn’t require “deep” esoteric thought and it doesn’t require intense sacrifice of superhuman effort. You don’t have to be “graced” by God or endowed by nature. You just have to take your consciousness outside of the vehicle for a bit in order to get a wider perspective. It’s not hard and anybody can do it. If you want help, there’s a great water glass metaphor contained in my book The Great Awakening: Concepts and Techniques for Successful Spiritual Practice that really does help you shift your perspective so you can stop identifying yourself with the physical body.

If you want help, I recommend you For now, just stop pretending like you’re “only” your physical body and start opening to the wider spiritual realities which are your heritage and birthright. Say to yourself “I want to know more” and, like magic, the information and insight will start to come to you. At this point you may not understand why it works, but you’ll definitely see the reality and the magic of all. Let that whet your appetite. Let that encourage you to step out of the car and take a look at the broader reality which you have access to.
There’s nothing to fear and the only thing you have to lose are your limitations and chains.

Till next time,

Dr. Michael Sharp

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>.

ms

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.”