Mental Radio

Upton Sinclair is a Pulitzer Prize winning author who wrote over one hundred books including the classic novel The Jungle. Sinclair had a deep interest in psychic phenomena and wrote a book called Mental Radio documenting a series of tests he conducted with his wife, Mary Craig Kimbrough, in order to understand her self-claimed telepathic abilities. Sinclair devised a series of 300 tests that were said to prove the reality of mental telepathy and remote viewing while revealing untold powers of the mind.


Sinclair is said to have sat in one room drawing a picture and then placing it into a sealed envelop while Mary, who was in another room, would "tune in" and draw what she perceived. In other tests, Mary would write out a message sent from someone "far away." Her accuracy rate was said to be astonishing ruling out random chance as an explanation. The couple conducted these experiments for a period of three years. They conducted 290 trials consisting of 65 (23%) successes, 155 (53%) partial successes and 70 (24%) failures.

Sinclair used radio broadcasting as a metaphor to explain how telepathy works. One person's brain sent out a mental "vibration" that the other brain picked up. Sinclair concluded that telepathy is real, uneffected by distance and can be trained, verified and scientifically studied.

Mental Radio documents these experiments and includes Mary's instructions on how to learn the "art of conscious mind-reading." William McDougall, known as the "Dean of American Psychology" at the time, was inspired by the Sinclair's work. McDougall went on to establish a parapsychology department at Duke University. Parapsychology is a discipline that seeks to investigate the existence and causes of psychic abilities and life after death using the scientific method.

Mental Radio was originally published in 1930 and republished in 2001 as a part of Hampton Roads series Classics in Conciousness, edited by Russell Targ. The 2001 edition has an addendum containing an analysis of the raw experiment documentation by Dr Walter Franklin Prince of the Boston Society for Psychic Research. Albert Einstein wrote the book's Preface:



I have read the book of Upton Sinclair with great interest and am convinced that the same deserves the most earnest consideration, not only of the laity, but also of the psychologists by profession. The results of the telepathic experiments carefully and plainly set forth in this book stand surely far beyond those which a nature investigator holds to be thinkable. On the other hand, it is out of the question in the case of so conscientious an observer and writer as Upton Sinclair that he is carrying on a conscious deception of the reading world; his good faith and dependability are not to be doubted. So if somehow the facts here set forth rest not upon telepathy, but upon some unconscious hypnotic influence from person to person, this also would be of high psychological interest. In no case should the psychologically interested circles pass over this book heedlessly.

Albert Einstein - Preface - Mental Radio

In order to achieve a receptive state of telepathy and be able to distinguish between true psychic impressions and normal thoughts, Mary suggests, on page 105 of Mental Radio, that you "Give yourself a suggestion to the effect that you will relax your mind and your body, making the body insensitive and the mind a blank , and reserving the power to break the concentration in a short time. By making the body insensitive, I mean simply to relax completely your mental hold of, or awareness of, all bodily sensation. After giving yourself this suggestion a few times, you proceed to relax both body and mind. Relax all mental interest in everything in the environment; inhibit all thoughts which try to wander into consciousness from the subconsciousness, or from wherever else thoughts come." She adds,  "the way to relax is to let go. Let go of every tense muscle, every tense spot, in the body. This deep relaxation is important for if the body is tense it affects the thoughts in the mind. Likewise, if the mind is full of thoughts it will tense the body." More precise instructions are given on the following pages of the book.

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Edgar Cayce's Apple Diet

Edgar Cayce recommended eating apples for three days in order to detoxify and purify the body. After doing so, one should feel energetic and full of vitality. According to Cayce, the Apple Diet alkalizes the system and helps bring relief from chronic aches and pain. It is important to eat the right type of apples. Cayce referred to these as the "jenneting" varieties which means apples which ripen on or before St. John's Day which is June 24th.

Raw apples should always be eaten alone and not combined with other foods. When eating apples in order to detoxify the body, eat at least five or six apples each day, drink plenty of water and rest. It is as simple as that.

At the end of day three, follow up with two to three teaspoons of cold-pressed olive oil. If you are on an oil restricted diet, continue eating apples for another day or two instead.

Remember to rest. Do not attempt the apple diet when you will be busy. Choose a time when you have nothing to do other than rest and relax.

Disclaimer: This is not medical advice. It is advice given by Edgar Cayce while in a trance state. Follow your own intuition in regard to the Apple Diet.

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Death Makes Life Possible

Death Makes Life Possible is a feature length documentary film which follows the journey of noetic scientist, Marilyn Schlitz, PhD as she sets out to discover the mysteries of life and death. Marilyn's journey began about 15 years ago when she began interviewing scientists, anthropologists, spiritual teachers, and philosophers about death and the possible survival of consciousness following physical death. Marilyn recorded people’s personal experiences of near death, out-of-body, mediumship, reincarnation, and the final days of life.  Marilyn and Deepak Chopra worked together with a small team of filmmakers in order to create a feature documentary that could bring these stories out into public awareness and in the process, help heal a widespread fear of death.

In order to bring the film to completion additional work needs to be done including purchasing additional stock footage,  creating some animation, producing a musical sound track and editing the film.  If you are interested in helping with a financial donation please make a donation through the project's Kickstarter page.  You can view the film's trailer here:  Death Makes Life Possible

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Are You Amused to Death????

While enjoying my morning coffee and browsing news headlines, one caught my eye. The headline read "Yoko Ono's Top Five Must Reads." I clicked on the link and browsed the list. The title of one book especially appealed to me - "Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, by Neil Postman.
A quick trip to Amazon shows its available in paperback or as an audiobook. The paperback is out of print and there were only 28 copies available. I suspect that number will soon change. According to the product description, Amusing Ourselves to Death "Examines the ways in which television has transformed public discourse--in politics, education, religion, science, and elsewhere--into a form of entertainment that undermines exposition, explanation and knowledge. "

We, as human beings, are conditioned by our culture, society, parents, religion education, peer groups and anything else that influences our thinking and beliefs. A brief visit to Wikipedia brings up the following definition of social conditioning:

"  Social conditioning refers to the sociological process of training individuals in a society to respond in a manner generally approved by the society in general and peer groups within society. The concept is stronger than that of socialization, which refers to the process of inheriting norms, customs and ideologies. Manifestations of social conditioning are vast, but they are generally categorized as social patterns and social structures including education, employment, entertainment, popular culture, religion, spirituality and family life. The social structure in which an individual finds him or herself influences and can determine their social actions and responses. Social conditioning represents the environment and personal experience in the nature vs. nurture debate. Society in general and peer groups within society set the norms which shape the behavior of actors within the social system. A work of literature that helps show this is "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley."
In order to grow and evolve as individuals and a race, it is important to understand how we are conditioned so that we can break free and liberate ourselves of conditioned patterns that hold us back and stunt our growth.

Although I have not personally read this book, it looks like the author wrote in an an attempt to help people gain an awareness of how we are conditioned by pop culture via the entertainment business.

Barron Laycock, who reviewed the book on Amazon, writes, "Postman binds your interest by illustrating and documenting how the rise of the elecrtonic media and its manipulation of what you see in way of news and entertainment has inexorably changed the meanings,purposes and ultimate uses of politics, economics, and technology. As Huxley himself warned, totalitarian societies need not arise through violent overthrow of the democracies using brutality, cruelty and violence, but can also occur whenever the citizenry is successfully deluded into apathy by petty diversions and entertainments, as well."

In another review, Ben Barczi writes, "Postman's thesis in this brief but articulate book consists of two tenets: (1) The form of communication, to some extent, determines (or is biased toward certain types of) content; (2) Television, as our modern-day uber-form of communication, has biases which are destructive toward the rational mind. TV teaches us to expect life to be entertaining, rather than interesting; it teaches us to expect 8-minute durations of anything and everything (anything else is beyond our attention span); it teach us to be suspicious of argument and discussion, and instead to accept facts at face value. Furthermore - and, by far, the most important discovery Postman makes in this book - TV teaches us to live a decontextualized life."

Barczi later states, "It certainly is true that the vast majority of Americans are perfectly happy not to develop any sort of framework or philosophy; life is simply life, and one doesn't need to consider it. Even today's elite students, who are certainly able to integrate lessons and perform well academically, have fallen to this malady; as David Brooks pointed out in his searingly accurate article, "The Organization Kid," (Atlantic Monthly, April 2001) top-notch students no longer attempt to build any sort of moral or philosophical structure from their studies; a life lived in a context, makes no sense to the student who has grown up watching the decontextualized television screen."

Amusing Ourselves to Death inspired Amused to Death, a concept album by Pink Floyd bassist Roger Waters, which was released in 1992. According to Wikipedia, Amused to Death explores Waters' disillusionment with modern Western society, focusing specifically on the influence of television and the mass media.
In an interview published in the L.A. Times in September 1992, Roger's is quoted as saying, "So I became interested in this idea of television as a two-edged sword, that it can be a great medium for spreading information and understanding between peoples, but when it's a tool of our slavish adherence to the incumbent philosophy that the free market is the god that we should all bow down to, it's a very dangerous medium. Because it's so powerful."

The song "Perfect Sense" inspired John Isaak Alpert to analyze the lyrics on Water's album. "Roger Waters's "Perfect Sense" from the album, Amused to Death, questions why we view the world in terms of profit instead of human life. For me it opened up the question of how we value things. " Discussing the song "What God Wants, Part I, Alpert writes, "The second song "What God Wants, Part I" starts by telling us how the will of the controllers of the mass media is imposed on the individual. This is made very clear by the repetition of key lines. "  You can read the entire piece on Water's website. 

Both the album and the book sound like they contain an important message. Maybe its time to turn off the media and learn to think for ourselves.
　
　

　

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Initiation

The first rock concert I attended was Todd Rundgren and Utopia back when I was in high school. Todd is a musician, songwriter and producer who has contributed much to rock music but who has had little commercial success. Part of the reason the commercial success eludes him, is because Rundgren tends to do what he wants and much of his music is very experimental. One of his most experimental albums, which is not likely to appeal to most people and is best listened to with headphones, is Initiation.  Released in  1975,  "Initiation" is a conceptual album combining elements of psychedelic rock, soul, avant-garde jazz fusion, and progressive rock. 

Initiation is heavily influenced by the teachings of Alice Bailey and Theosophy. Initiation is a Theosophical concept stating that there are nine levels of spiritual development. This concept was developed by both Alice A. Bailey and C.W. Leadbeater in the early 1920s.  In an interview in the past Rundgren said, "I hadn’t done much dabbling around in the mystical at all, but I was looking at these books and they were explaining some of the phenomena I was experiencing. I started devouring these Eastern philosophies, never buying any of them whole but following the thread of anything that was consonant with what I was experiencing. I got very much into Theosophical writers like C.W. Leadbeater, who applied scientific methods to Hindu philosophy and came up with a new synthesis. These were concepts that found their way into my personal cosmology and into my music. I mean, I never read the actual Treatise On Cosmic Fire because it was just too damn opaque, but I figured it made a good concept to hang the music on."

Theosophy combines elements of Eastern Religion with Christian ideals. Rundgren's Initiation begins with the pop classic "Real Man" which is partially inspired by a biblical verse:  "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child: now that I am become a man, I have put away childish things. 1 Corinthians 13:11 RV"

When I was a child
I thought as a child
I spoke as a child
I didn't know better
But now I'm a man
I look like a man
I'm old as a man
And I should know better

"Real Man" Initiation (1975) - music & lyrics by Todd Rundgren

In Eastern Intrigue we find that Rundgren has been exploring a variety of religions, spiritual philosophies and paths to God. Eastern Intrigue is a satirical piece in which Rundgren plays electric piano, keyboard computer, electric sitar and an assortment of percussion instruments.

I'm on my knees, one question please
Will the real God please stand up?

Jesus and Moses, Mohammed, and Sri Krishna
Steiner, Gurdjief, Blavatsky, and Bhudda
Guru Maharaji, Reverend Sun Myung Moon
"Eastern Intrigue" Initiation (1975) - music & lyrics by Todd Rundgren

Eastern Intrigue is followed by the title track, Initiation, which is a progressive-disco track. Here Rundgren comes to realize that the real God can only be found within.

Silently listen and it shall be revealed
I was born to fly higher,
born to stand where I'm standing now
Basking in the light of the neon fire
As it burns my useless body to the ground
Desire let me go
I would fly so high through the sky, never to die
Love has come, Love has come
Inside outside, it shall be revealed

"Initiation" Initiation (1975) - music & lyrics by Todd Rundgren

Side one comes to a close with Fair Warning which is a philosophical Rundgrenish rap song warning us that we are all responsible for our own actions and making our own way through life. The song features some jazzy saxophone work by Edgar Winter and ends with a few fines from Real Man.

You know, wishing won't make it so
Hoping won't do it, praying won't do it
Religion won't do it, philosophy won't do it
The supreme court won't do it,
the president and the congress won't do it
The UN won't do it, the H-bomb won't do it,
the sun and the moon won't do it
And God won't do it,
and I certainly won't do it
That leaves you, you'll have to do it

........

Love owns us all, Time owns us all, Life owns us all
But the world doesn't own me

"Fair Warning" Initiation (1975) music & lyrics by Todd Rundgren

Side two of Initiation consists of one single song, "A Treatise on Cosmic Fire" which is a 36 minute instrumental. The title of the song is taken from the book of the same name published in 1928 by Alice Bailey. The song consists of three parts: "I. The Internal Fire, or Fire by Friction; II. The Fire of Spirit, or Electric Fire; The Fire of Mind, or Solar Fire." (the second parts of each of these phrases are taken from A Treatise on Cosmic Fire by Alice Bailey.

“Bam, bham, mam, yam, Ram, Lam, thank you mahm.”.

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