By Gavin Nascimento, A New Kind Of Human

You are more powerful than you know and they fear the day you discover it!”

Truth

I remember listening to a talk by Sir Ken Robinson several years ago; about how backwards the education system is, and the imperative to implement major reform. Although he certainly gave an exceptional presentation on the matter, what ultimately captured my mind was the mention of what I now consider the most important study I have ever heard of in my life — a study in divergent thinking.

NASA — who houses the world’s foremost space program and some of the brightest people on the planet — contacted Dr George Land and Beth Jarman to develop a highly specialized test that would give them the means to effectively measure the creative potential of their rocket scientists and engineers. As a result, the duo came up with an unorthodox test, rooted in the process of divergent thinking; which is the ability to look at a particular problem and propose multiple solutions.

NASA were very pleased with the efficacy of the test results, and so it proved to be a huge success. But for Land and Jarman — who had obviously explored the concept of creativity in great detail whilst devising this test — they decided they wanted to explore and try understand the true source of creativity better. Was it a genetic trait? The result of life experience? Something else??

Because the test Land and Jarman created for NASA was so simple, it could actually be applied to any age group. So they found 1,600 children between the ages of 4 and 5, and decided to measure their progress. What they found shocked them.

Out of the 1,600 kids that took the test, 98% of them scored at genius level! Excited by these incredible findings, the team decided to turn this test into a longitudinal study, and give the same group of children the same test again in 5 years time. Once again their findings were quite shocking, but this time for conversely different reasons. Because these same children, by now in grade school, had rapidly declined to just 30%; a 68% reduction! The same study was conducted again 5 years later on the same group of kids — by now in highschool — and  they had dropped all the way down to just 12%!

Disturbed, but still intrigued by this fascinating study, Land decided to conduct this same test on adults aged 25 and up (with an average age of 31). After numerous studies, what he invariably found, was that less than 2% of all adults scored at genius level. And for those who question the consistency of these results — or think they may be isolated incidences — these results have actually been replicated more than a million times![1]

WE ARE BEING SYSTEMATICALLY DUMBED DOWN

The implications of this profound study are rather self evident, I would say. We are innately born with the potential of a creative genius, but the moment we enter the school system, we get dramatically dumbed down. The reasoning for this is not too difficult to apprehend; school, as we plainly call it, is an institution that has historically been put in place to ultimately serve the wants of the ruling class, not the common people. Whether it be ancient Sparta, Germanic Prussia, or the more modern industrial American system, education has always served as a “lawful” means of mass indoctrination.[2]

If you would like to learn more about this history of deliberate manipulation, I highly recommend reading award winning teacher, John Taylor Gatto’s book The Underground History of American Education, which traces the genesis of modern day compulsory schooling and clearly demonstrates how it has always been used against us.

You see, children pose the greatest threat of all to this corrupt system. Their “wild imaginations” are so intense and remarkable, that if left unchecked would result in a creative revolution that will ultimately compromise the ruling class’s proverbial game of monopoly. In order for the so called elite to maintain their lavish life style’s of overt luxury — where they contribute the least but enjoy the most — they understand that children must be dumbed down and brainwashed to accept (and even serve) their rapacious system of artificial scarcity, unending exploitation, and incessant war.

SO WHERE DOES CREATIVITY COME FROM AND IS IT TOO LATE FOR ME TO GET IT BACK?

Creativity is born in the mind; specifically the imagination. The good news is, in spite of the ruling class’s best efforts to degrade our inner genius, the imagination can only be suppressed, it cannot be killed. Because every night when we go to sleep, the imagination gets stimulated.[3] Therefore, your creative potential — your inner genius — is simply sleeping within and just needs to be reawakened and rehabilitated.

HOW CAN I REHABILITATE MY CREATIVITY?

According to George Land, based on all the studies he has conducted and all the brain scans he has looked at, we must learn how to judge less, and look to understand more. We must criticize less, and be curious more. He also cites fear and anxiety as being extremely counter productive.

Some of the greatest ways to deal with these mental debilitations, is to engage in practices like yoga, meditation, and physical exercise, since they help to alleviate stress and anxiety. They also inspire a process called neurogenesis — which is the creation of new brain cells. Diet also plays an important role in mental strength and overall wellbeing. In fact, I recently wrote an article about how roughly 10% of serotonin (which helps to regulate mood) is produced in the brain, and the other 90% in the stomach.

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Some philosophical questions are so difficult you could tie yourself up in mental knots trying to understand them. But they do make great dinner party conversations.

These types of philosophical questions are usually known as thought experiments. People have been using these conundrums to understand philosophical concepts for nearly 2,000 years.

The purpose of a thought experiment is to explore the potential consequences of a certain principle. It is usually not possible, for physical or ethical reasons, to actually perform the experiment so a definitive answer can never be reached.

Here are 5 of the most mind-bending philosophical questions around.

1. Hotel Infinity

The Hotel Infinity paradox is used to explain the concept of infinity.

Picture a hotel in your mind. Try to imagine that this room has an infinite number of rooms with an infinite number of guests staying in them. Now, imagine you walked up to the reception and asked for a room. Unfortunately, the infinite rooms are full of infinite guests, meaning there is no room at the inn for you.

Luckily, the desk manager has a brainwave. He says: “I’ve got it. I’ll just move the guest in Room 1 to Room 2!” And he does. He moves the guest that was in Room 2 to Room 3, and Room 3 to Room 4, and so on—an infinite number of guests getting bumped deeper into the infinite number of rooms.

This seems perfectly reasonable. However, the hotel originally had an infinite number of guests and now it has infinity plus one. So which number is really infinity?

2. Beetle in a Box

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889 –1951) was an Austrian-British philosopher. He published his book Philosophical Investigations in 1953, and it has since come to be recognized as one of the most important works of philosophy in the twentieth century. Wittgenstein was also the author of the famous beetle in the box thought experiment.

For this thought experiment, Wittgenstein asks that we imagine a group of people who each have a box containing something called a “beetle”.  No one can see into anyone else’s box. Everyone is asked to describe their beetle, but each person can only talk about their own beetle, as there might be different things in each person’s box. Over time, the word “beetle” simply comes to mean “that thing that is in a person’s box.”

The mental experiment makes us think about how we describe our unique experiences. The beetle is like our minds. We can never know exactly what other people are experiencing. So, if someone says they are experiencing pain or love, we can never really know what that experience is like for them and whether it is the same for us.

3. The Trolley Problem

One of the most well-known ethical thought experiments is the Trolley Problem. This experiment was recently used to dramatic effect in the TV series The Good Place.

The experiment goes like this:

Imagine you are driving a trolley and the brakes fail. Up ahead are five people tied to the trolley tracks. You can choose to switch your trolley to another track. However, this track has one person tied to it.

You are now in a moral dilemma. If you do nothing, five people will die. However, if you take action to save those five people, your deed will lead to the death of an innocent person. This could be one of the hardest philosophical questions to answer.

4. The Experience Machine

The Experience Machine is a thought experiment put forward by philosopher Robert Nozick in his 1974 book Anarchy, State, and Utopia.

Suppose there was an experience machine that would give you any experience you desired. You can choose whatever experiences you want to have by pre-programming the machine. Once in the machine, your brain would be stimulated so that it felt like you were experiencing everything you had programmed. You would not know that these experiences weren’t real. For you, they would seem just like ordinary life. Plugging into the machine would eliminate toil, struggle and suffering and create a life of perfection. Would you plug in?

Many people would choose not to because this perfect life would not be ‘real’. But what would the difference be?

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The following is excerpted from The Order-Disorder Paradox by Nathan Schwartz-Salant, published by North Atlantic Books. 

In the mainstream of collective life, our attitude toward creating and establishing order is based on rational-scientific consciousness; our science is ruled by causality and a belief in objectivity; our model of time is the ongoing events of historical life; our scientific mode of problem solving initiates and expands a horizon of future problems to be solved.

Through our dominant and particular structures (of consciousness, space, and time), we are caught on a treadmill of becoming, reaching for and thinking about the next thing to do. There is little room for being and reflecting; scientific methodology and the lens of causality is the ever-expanding template for all fields of knowledge. With present-day scientific and technological progress increasing at a near-unfathomable pace, we are at a stage, relative to any previous historical epoch, that dwarfs the possible unknown and dangerous consequences of denying our created disorder.

Writers and philosophers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, such as George Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells, adopted the “materialist progressivism” of Beatrice and Sidney Webb, and extolled the virtues of technology and rational-scientific thinking. But more prescient types, notably Martin Heidegger, S.ren Kierkegaard, and Friedrich Nietzsche foresaw and exposed the likely madness of this endeavor as it propels us away from the authentic ground of our existence.

In The Genealogy of Morals, written in 1887, Nietzsche declared:

Ever since Copernicus man has been rolling down an incline, faster and faster,
away from the center—whither? Into the void? Into the piercing sense of
his emptiness?… All science, natural as well as unnatural (by which I mean
the self-scrutiny of the “knower”), is now determined to talk man out of his
former respect for himself, as though that respect had been nothing but a
bizarre presumption.

Created disorder is the shadow side of rational-scientific developments whose marvels continuously dazzle. Could a sensitivity and respect for this disorder guide us back to our center, the self, rather than drive us away from it? Nothing but the integration of our shadow-creation of disorder is likely to have any success. Jung’s remark that “the world hangs on a thin thread, and that thread is the psyche of man”  should be a compulsory meditation, like musing on the mystery of a Zen koan, for all of us—especially the titans of industry and government, and the entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley.

So-called primitive logic, remarkably uncovered by the French anthropologist Claude L.vi-Strauss, and which also characterized alchemical thinking, creates order in ways at variance with the rational-scientific approach. In that older logic, the rule is not to find a new solution but, through the serious play of metaphor, to seek out an opposite to any event, discovering it metaphorically in mythical structure.  The older process requires a diffuse but still focused form of awareness—variously called mythical or lunar in distinction to rational or solar—bridging conscious and unconscious, outer and inner, and sensitive to a causal forms of order that appear, for example, in synchronicity.

The scientific mind understands  nature. Storms, earthquakes, unusual cold, heat spells, and so forth, are rationally understood: something has caused them. Such knowledge becomes a powerful defense against disturbing feelings. Science will predict when these environmental conditions will likely end, and so we have the promise of a “good object” to take away the “bad.” We just have to be adult, tolerate frustration, and understand that better days will come. The masthead of science is blazoned with causality and objectivity.

The mythical mind experiences the world differently, letting Nature have a personality whose features appear as events metaphorically correlate to a mythical structure. Thus, a series of dreary days, so oppressive to the rational mind, which remembers pleasanter times, is seen instead as Nature’s disorder impinging on people to absorb or order, allowing her to function more effectively.

Under this paradigm, our own discomfort and moods become meaningful. Too much snow for our convenience is seen as the Germanic Great Mother Frau Holle shaking out her feather quilts, her housecleaning. We partially absorb her overloaded condition so she can act to advantage. Generally, Nature is an alive Being, and we are part of the process in which she creates order and suffers disorder, initiated by her own actions and/or ours.

To survive the disorder accompanying scientific-rational awareness, something new and unique in the history of humanity was wrought: the ego. But this ego has become extremely insensitive to the effects, much less the necessity and usefulness, of its created disorder.

The rational ego has a tendency and capacity to split its ordering acts and products from the disorder required by the second law of thermodynamics. Then the ODP ceases to be noticed, let alone to have an unsettling sense of paradox. Created disorder is split off and projected into other people; into unconscious, organizing structures; and into the environment.

Then the question arises: what is the effect of this disorder? The following list summarizes some previous points, and adds to them.

1. Created disorder can turn against a newly established attitude and structure.

This disorder tends to reactively diminish the gain, if not totally destroy the results, of all creative acts in time. These acts can run the spectrum from generating order in near-mindless, repetitive ways, to discoveries that are totally new to the individual and the existing collective consciousness. Along this spectrum, with any order, whether it be the rare occurrence of an emergence of consciousness that sees the world in a fundamentally different way, or the ordinary arranging of information in a ready-made form—a tax return, a to-do list, an outline for a report, filing papers, remembering to set an alarm or take medication, or other such routine, daily actions—disorder is always created.

Generally, the newer and more energy-upgrading the behavior, the greater will be the disorder. That is why the latest structures in development are the least stable. The same applies to the psyche: the latest structures are the least stable, and need to be continually fed by the energy sources that spawned them, until more stability forms.

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We live in a world in which human being creates divergent perspectives and opinions on the emotional, spiritual, mental and psychological benefits of experimenting with hallucinogenic substances. The psychedelic drug, LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) has been a key component in many scientific research projects that have shifted the overall cultural reaction to the conscious-expanding tool that the celestial tonic has become.

According to a research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists have claimed that LSD serves to create a more well-rounded and balanced brain. LSD breaks down chunks of the brain with alternative functions such as vision and movement to create a more integrated and collected brain. Our human brains are miracles that consist of independent networks that perform specialized functions, yet while under the superhuman influence of LSD, these offbeat functions work as a coalesced entity. Between the hallucinogenic effects that seemingly put the analytical mind to rest and the visual cortex experiencing a psychoactive effect, a far less egoic version of oneself comes to light and reminds individuals to embody and simply be their highest selves.

“This suggests this effect underlies the profound altered state of consciousness. It is also related to what people sometimes call ‘ego-dissolution’, which means the normal sense of self is broken down and replaced by a sense of reconnection with themselves, others and the natural world,” said Robin Carhart Harris, lead researcher and first scientist in 40 years to test LSD on humans.

Landing in the otherworldly mental and emotional landscape through LSD where life should not be but simply is combined with heightened situational awareness invigorating an individual’s being with joy ignites an idiosyncratic perspective that leaves brain child’s musing upon interconnectedness while moving through the shifting rhythms, milestones and vicissitudes of daily life. Immersing oneself in the gap between civilizations through experimentation with LSD is becoming far more common within modern-day society through reference to the mystical experiences that others are encountering. For a moment’s time, the magical substance empty’s individuals of their jaded frame of reference about the world around and within themselves. Emptiness is synonymous with potential, a state of pure vacancy, a hole in the wall, a window with an unobscured view. And when individuals chose to take on the emptiness of their internal landscape, lucidity is attained. What was known becomes absolutely obsolete, and in the space left by overwhelming familiarity and societal expectation, inspiration and creation takes root. And within this heart-centered place, everything is possible. Magic certainly abounds.

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by Cherie Roe Dirksen

You’ve heard of the monkey mind, right?

It’s the Buddhist term meaning restless; unsettled; confused; inconstant; indecisive and somewhat uncontrollable. It’s that state when the ego thinks it’s in control and uses the mind (thoughts) as its conduit — a state most of us have found ourselves in from time to time (or, for some, all the time).

Monkey Business

Unfortunately, these ‘thoughts’ think they run the show (from the mind, which is running ape-shit — excuse the phrase but I had to). This impish-rogue, primate mind can only take you so far and no further. That’s why you can reach a stalemate in your life if you’re blocked from your higher states as the egoic mind is only a shadow of the higher mind — a pale and distorted reflection of sorts.

My penny just dropped about how I’ve been trying to manifest according to my unconscious (associated with beliefs), subconscious (associated with emotions) limiting beliefs.

Let me explain:

1. I am more convinced than ever that reality is an illusion — a playground for our divine, little souls to run amok. Read related article: The Holographic Universe and The Illusion of Separation
2. The only thing that is ‘real’ per se is our existence or oversoul/individual soul/higher self. Think of the SIMS game — you, the oversoul, are playing in virtual reality creating families, communities and playing with the concept of individuation and ‘life’.
3. Now this ‘higher mind’ is the one with the overview (not the monkey mind or egoic mind — it can’t see further than your nose). Think of the higher self as the one standing on top of a skyscraper looking out on the city below — it can see all the streets and happenings taking place. Think of you, the part of the self in physical matter, as being on the ground — you’re level of perception is looking down an avenue and only seeing what is directly before you. You are not getting the birds eye view of the higher self up there gazing upon all possibilities below. Say for example (and this is going to be a very primitive example but you’ll get the idea): you want a coffee. The monkey mind can smell coffee brewing but takes you on a wild goose chase all over the city thinking it can pin point the location. If you had asked the higher self, it could have told you to take a right and a left and…Starbucks. Headquarters (the higher mind) can see the quickest route while monkey mind is still swinging from branch to branch.
4. Let go of the monkey mind version of how you want your life to transpire and let in the guidance of the higher mind. The egoic mind can only create from past events. It has no idea of future infinite possibilities because it hasn’t been played out across the minds screen yet. That is why when you ask for something you shouldn’t try to conceive of how you’re going to get it — your job is only the asking or the ‘vision’ of what you want not how you’re going to manifest it. Only the higher mind can see the possibilities laid out before you. Have you ever manifested something by letting go of the control aspect? Did you find that you could never have dreamed it possible to show up in the way it did and were fascinated at all the signs and synchronicities (read related article: Why Synchronicity Can Change Your Life) that led you to said manifestation? That’s because your higher self has the overview and not the ego mind.
5. When you let go and tap into your intuition, cultivating a bond between physical mind and higher mind, you will allow infinite possibilities and realities to flow through you without the resistance and persistence of the monkey mind getting in the way. The ego thinks it knows everything but it doesn’t, it is only necessary to keep you in physicality (as far as I can tell). This means that we need the ego to keep us on earth or we’d probably want to go back home — you get my drift, right?
6. So, let the higher mind pick out the destination (it knows what you came here to do, so let it do its job), you need to be open to receive the package via the physical mind and then interpret it through the physical experience. It’s really quite simple — law of least effort type stuff, savvy?

I recently applied this monkey mind vs. higher mind stuff to one of my life situations and had to laugh. I was trying to conceive the situation as ‘thus’ (via my chimp noodle) when the situation was ‘this’ (something completely different and couldn’t have possibly conceived through the ego mind until I let the higher mind speak up). Suffice it to say, I was WAY off course but things slipped into understanding when I got out of my own way.

So, how do you get out of the ego mind and step into the higher mind?

Easy! Have fun…lot’s of it!

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Pain, injury and disease can be absolutely devastating to your lifestyle. When you’re constantly dogged by pain, it can feel next to impossible to achieve your previous level of happiness, contentment and fulfillment. It can feel like a struggle to even get out of bed in the morning, let alone accomplish your goals with enthusiasm.

So what solutions are available to you? One common answer is to visit your doctor, and that’s an important place to start. However, many doctors jump to cover the problem with pills and send you back on your way.

Drugs are the Default Approach

This isn’t to say medication doesn’t have its place. Many conditions can only be treated with medication. It’s not necessarily always something to fear or scoff at.

However, the problem occurs when drugs and pills become the default method of treatment for almost every condition, regardless of whether or not they represent the best approach. One excellent example of this problem is the huge surge in Xanax usage among Generation Y.

The problem with drugs is they often treat symptoms without addressing the heart of the problem. Or in some cases, they address one single facet of the problem while leaving other elements untouched. An alternative approach that seeks to heal both mind and body together is known as holistic healing.

Engage your doctor in conversation the next time they offer medication as the only option for treatment. Ask if drugs are the only way to treat your condition and what other options may be available. If they seem open to other possibilities, continue the discussion. Perhaps they may prescribe a holistic healing treatment for you, or they may be open to some combination of this and traditional medication.

Here are some of the holistic healing methods to talk about with your doctor as potential alternatives to medication.

1. Meditation

While your injury or pain point may reflect directly to the body, your mind may suffer a similar amount. And while the body is comparatively easy to heal, the mind is often the more difficult puzzle to piece back together.

Meditation is a wonderful practice. It allows you space to find inner peace and healing by looking inside yourself and reflecting honestly, or by coming to a place of stillness and acceptance. The healing that can occur from these places is extremely powerful.

Enroll in a meditation class led by an expert, follow along with YouTube videos or simply meditate by yourself in the quiet of your own home.

2. Botanical Medicine

This category encompasses all forms of medicine or supplements made from herbs, bark, seeds, roots or other purely natural sources. While these may not always pack the same punch as manufactured drugs, and are no supplement in serious situations, these natural remedies can go a long way toward moving your healing process along.

Because these remedies are created from the natural world around us, they are not foreign substances to our body. They are neither abrasive nor damaging, and work to heal our bodies gently, without introducing any manufactured chemicals into our bodies.

3. Physical Therapy

You can incorporate physical therapy as a recuperation strategy if recovering from a physical injury. A physical therapist is a doctor trained to help your body re-learn how to function. Sometimes, this means re-teaching your body how to gain back its full range of motion. Other times, it means learning to cope with new limitations on mobility. Either way, it’s an important step in the healing process.

Most often, physical therapy will consist of exercises completed by oneself, with the help of an exercise machine or with the help of another human being. In all likelihood, your doctor will prescribe these exercises to you, demonstrating the correct technique and telling you how many times to repeat the exercise on your own at home.

By way of these gentle exercises, the limits of your body slowly stretch and grow as you continue on your journey toward healing and regaining your life, whether that looks exactly like it used to or whether it looks a little different now.

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