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AA-EVP ParaNews Index >
2004 Reports
AA-EVP ParaNews for July
2004
Mindfulness Meditation.
A new type of meditation is coming to the forefront in wellness
research. Most people are already familiar with concentration and
contemplative meditation. In concentration meditation, the objective is
to clear the mind of internal chatter and present an open awareness to
subtle thought of the inner self or other entities. Contemplative
meditation is much the opposite, in that the person focuses on a single
subject and examines every aspect of it in an effort to gain insights
about that subject. In Mindfulness Meditation, the person is taught to
become aware of every aspect of their environment, including the
temperature, sounds and feelings. As discussed below, this last form of
meditation has been shown to be particularly useful for improving the
wellness of the meditator.
Training in Mindfulness Meditation improves Immune Function.
A group of scientists represented by Richard J. Davidson, PhD of the
Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience, Department of Psychology,
University of Wisconsin, have published a paper titled, Alterations
in Brain and Immune Function Produced by
Mindfulness
Meditation. The scientists measured brain electrical activity in
students and people waiting to become students before and after, and
then four months after an eight-week training program in mindfulness
meditation. Eight weeks into the study, both groups were vaccinated with
influenza vaccine. The scientists detected a significant increase in
left-sided anterior activation, a pattern previously associated with
positive affect, in the meditators compared with the nonmeditators. They
also found significant increases in antibodies titers to influenza
vaccine among subjects in the meditation compared with those in the
wait-list control group. The magnitude of increase in left-sided
activation predicted the magnitude of antibody titer rise to the
vaccine.
From the report, “These findings
demonstrate that a short program in mindfulness meditation produces
demonstrable effects on brain and immune function. These findings
suggest that meditation may change brain and immune function in positive
ways and underscore the need for additional research.”
From: Psychosomatic Medicine,
Psychosom Med.2003; 65: 564-570,
www.psychosomaticmedicine.org
Award in Consciousness.
The Mind Science Foundation recently announced that it has awarded seven
research teams worldwide a 2004 Tom Slick Research Award in
Consciousness. Only 20 research teams were considered for this honor.
Research in human consciousness influences art, mental and physical
health and the nature of religion. Grants recipients include the head of
the Royal Institution of Great Britain; a “TIME 100” scientist; an
M.D./author of two national bestsellers; and researchers whose work was
named by the New York Times among the “67 most exciting new ideas
for 2003.”
The awards are named after visionary
entrepreneur, explorer, philanthropist and author Tom Slick (1916-1962)
(FORTUNE July 1960) whose notable institutional legacies are the
Southwest Research Institute (the world's third-largest nonprofit
applied research institute) and the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical
Research, with a current staff of nearly 400 people.
From:
www.mindscience.org
What IONS is doing in science. If you have ever wondered what the
Institute of Noetic Sciences actually does to further
our scientific understanding of human potential, then the PDF file at
www.noetic.org/ions/HTML/science/files/folio.pdf should be of
interest to you. In this file, IONS discloses all of its currently
planned research projects, funded or not.
Ectoplasm
emanating from Minnie Harrison’s mouth. Courtesy Tom Harrison
The Mediumship of Minnie Harrison.
Tom Harrison witnessed over one thousand physical materializations in
his family circle during the 1940s and 1950s. These included trumpet and
direct voices, apports and full ectoplasmic materializations. Harrison
recorded some of his experiences during these sittings in a booklet
titled, Visits by Our Friends from the ‘Other Side’: The Remarkable
Mediumship of Minnie Harrison (Saturday Night Publications. First
Edition April 1989. ISBN: 0 9514534 0 8). A small introductory article,
accompanied by five large photographs, can be found at
http://uk.geocities.com/tmjones28/harrison.htm
From
International Survivalist Society
www.survivalafterdeath.org/news.htm#sspr
Patients want Spiritual Care.
A past issue of Newsweek discussed the medical profession and
faith and healing. According to a poll by Newsweek, 72% of those
surveyed said that they would welcome a conversation about faith with
their doctor. The same number of people believed that praying could cure
someone even if science said that it was not possible.
The health of a family member is what
70% of Americans say they most often pray for. 52% said they prayed for
world peace and only 27% said they prayed for financial or career
success.
More than half of all medical schools
now have courses that teach students how to talk to patients about faith
and illness. Newsweek says this is because, “patients are
demanding more spiritual care.”
From Faith & Healing by Claudia Kalb in Newsweek November 10, 2003
Converting Skeptics.
American professor Stan Grof, who founded Transpersonal Psychology, has
spent forty years researching practices which lead to direct experiences
with the spiritual realms. He has developed a method called, “holotropic
breathwork,” in which people experience their birth and what came before
it. Grof writes, “Whenever the process of experiential self-exploration
reaches the pre-natal (pre-birth) and the transpersonal levels, it leads
to spiritual awakening, and the individual becomes interested in the
mystical quest. I have seen many highly educated persons undergo this
process … and have yet to see a single individual, including atheist,
Marxists, and positivistic scientists, whose skepticism and cynicism
about spirituality would survive such an experience.”
From
Victor Zammit, A Lawyer Presents the Case for the Afterlife,
www.victorzammit.com/index.html |
