In Search of the Miraculous - Dr. Richard Maurice Bucke

The path I took to PD Ouspenski many years ago is somewhat circuitous. I begins with my reading a book by Dr. Richard Maurice Bucke on Cosmic Consciousness. It is strange to read now in the Google write up on the book that that the book was also one of the favourites of PD Ouspenski and William James. Dr. Bucke's medical research at the London Ontario insane asylum is to find an explanation of insanity occurring in his patients during the 1800's. He suspects that many of his patients are not really insane but that what appears to be insanity is the result of an evolution of the human mind. And, so Dr. Bucke's research begins.

My interest in the writing of Dr. Bucke arose because of father's period of insanity at age 57 in 1963 while he, the Rev. William Reed Lake, was a United Church Minister at the Royal York United Church in Etobicoke, Toronto, Canada. My father's bedroom room was next to mine and so I had almost constant awareness of what was occurring in his room and with his insanity. The results of that period were certainly etched on his mind in an unbelievable manner. My own conclusion became that he was not insane, and in fact, he overcame his period of disability to survive for 40 more so more years.

What Dad experienced was something similar to what Dr. Bucke the psychologist in London referred to as a mental experience of the evolution of 'man's brain. It was not so much the evolution of my Dad's brain that I was witnessing as much as the evolution of the brain of human beings. At least, that was the opinion of Dr. Richard Maurice Bucke of the many people with similar experience that he studied in the mid 1800's. His work is a major opus of scientific research which drew the attention of Walt Whitman, the famous American author of the poetry of 'The Leaves of Grass.'

At issue is the question of whether man is evolving. Both psychologists Dr. Bucke and Dr. Ouspenski came to the conclusion that certainly was the case.

Another idea of mine is that it is not so much evolution taking place but the future calling the present. I tend to think the time arrow is an illusion the mist of which will be lifted just as the mist of the flat earth was lifted. In my mist-less world, we can influence the past as much as we can the future. Although, we may have to figure out the means, but it is there for the asking. One approach is already available through the medium of light, which I have stated in another blog pages does not obey the normal laws of time, as we know them. Seriously, the playing field for this invention or discovery is wide open. My belief arises from personal experience that I have no way of denying. Just as a foreseer is able to see into the future in a dream, we have that capacity lurking within us, as the experimental studies of time by John Dunne may show.

Dr. Richard Maurice Bucke and His Ideas About Cosmic Consciousness

The story for me begins with the book by John Bucke, author and medical doctor in London, Ontario, who has met with Walt Whitman, author and poet. Walt Whitman has no fear of death and willing walks out on to the battlefield to collect the wounded and transport them to safety. Whitman writes of another state of being that he experiences and which inspired him to author 'Leaves of Grass.' I will continue.

The Mythological Bases of Our Respective Realities

Our respective realities are based on internalized mythologies. We are living worlds of dimensions that we hold personally and independently. You don't understand what I am saying do you! Let me explain.

We see evidence of an additional dimension as a barrier that we cannot ultimately cross for whatever reason. Over time, man has broken away at the dimensions impacting on his awareness and has reduced them into known dimensions. Unlike a worm, man has eyes that can see in three dimensions, but unlike a bat cannot see in the dimension of sound. One might ask whether man can see because like a bat man emits light that returns with an image of what forms a dimension out there, outside the brain.

Certainly, we can imagine man emitting light within the brain to create the dimension of dreams and inner visual thoughts like projections on a canvas within the brain. We even know the times of day and conditions when we can do this best. We know that we project light into inner regions of our brain and into the very fibers of our reality, but we don't know how this happens or even where this happens in time.

We think of our dreams as occurring in present time, in the now, but we only know for sure that the machinery of our brain is active in the present in the now. we do not know whether our inner vision crosses into past or future time. The dimensions of the mind thus entrap man into thinking that his reality is structured in a predictable way, but that is only because we have learned how to record events of the past and learned how to project series into the future.

We know the past and the future do not exist, or we think that they don't exist because we have a mythology of our reality that tells that we cannot be effective in the past and that we can only guess at our effectiveness in the future. But, is this just a mythology, or is it really our reality.

No! It is the mythological basis of our respective reality. We live within our mythologies and rarely get in touch with our realities. Our technologies, however, and our innovations in particular break away at our dimensions and enlarge them, so that they are increasingly unified as a single dimension. We think of our present reality as occurring in three dimensions, but we are now increasingly sure that it occurs in one dimension. What has happened?

Man thought of the earth as being flat and having regions that were unreachable. We now know that the earth is spherical and that all regions are reachable.

The mythology of the flat earth has disappeared as we grapple with the mythology of the universe, a world in which we are alone. But, we have clues that man on the earth is not alone and, in fact, man is crowded into a bigger world that we are accelerating towards at an alarming rate. The culture shock of the next mythology is tearing apart our current mythology of a single universe. The single big bang mythology is being replaced by a new mythology of billions and billions of reoccurring big bangs. We are becoming part of another dimension that we never knew about, or even imagined, a century ago.

Losing weight and regaining strength - A Physical Art

Very recently, I have been losing weight, and while many people around me are sick or cold vulnerable I have never felt better. The physical art of losing weight is not a simple art. I don't assume responsibility for any of the consequences of the exercises or steps shown below. You do them at your own risk, but if you are already reasonably healthy, they will probably help you further your goes of weight loss and strength building, and possibly your sex life, as well. It has taken me many years to figure out some of the rudiments of these physical arts, and I will share them free, gratis, with you. But you do the things at your own risk and use your judgment wisely as you may not be ready if you have an existing physical problem or weakness that is lurking below the surface. Get a health checkup first, if you need one:

1. Your weight is a very physical matter that has a mental origin. To lose weight permanently, you need to significantly alter your tastes and preferences for your tastes away from what is sweet to what is savoury. Not only do you have to like sweet less, but you have to like savoury more. This is a real challenge for most people, especially people like me who are addicted to carbohydrates and consume loads of beverages. In order to lose weight permanently, you need to address the mental processes that unconsciously direct your appetite towards sweetness. The way I did this was to come off sweeteners, cold turkey! For several days, you are uncomfortable drinking coffee and tea without anything sweet to trigger that part of your brain the like sweet stuff. Eventually, you will begin to like the savoury taste of coffee, the taste that was always there, but that you probably covered with sweetener or sugar stuff. Don't even use honey for sweetening your drinks, just get used to the savour taste of your beverage and you will be surprised that it becomes enjoyable and eventually your preference. If you succumb to sweetener by lying to yourself that you are doing yourself a favour or rewarding yourself, you are probably not going to lose weight. It is as simple as that.
2. The second physical art that comes with weight loss is that of maintaining or building up muscle mass. You don't want to be too muscular, and you want some muscles or fleshy parts to perform as if they are muscular, such as the penis, or vagina. You can build up the muscle mass of your limbs through the lifting of hand or other weights while maintaining your balance. One thing that you should remember when lifting weights is to eat a little protein, a little water and stretch first in order that your body can both feed, fluid and prepare itself for your muscle building. Afterwards, you should again eat a little protein, drink a little water, and stretch a little. I say a little, but you can increase the amounts over time gradually as you see actual progress. The lifting of weights helps strengthen your muscles, but do it gradually. What I have found is that it does matter, in the case of hand weights, which direction the weights are pointing. Each direction: forward, sideways, up, down, backwards, at an angle, etc. will tend to strengthen a slightly different part of your muscle structure. When I lift hand weights, I sometimes hear a clicking sound at the elbow. Often if I adjust the direction the weights are pointing, I can reduce the clicking sound. Use you judgment as to how many times you lift, but you should realize that just holding a weight can have a strengthening effect, especially the further away from your body, you hold the weights. Now, as regards strengthening the penis, men need to massage the top end of the penis closest to the boddy until it is less than floppy. By causing the dangly part to flop around it breaks tiny blood vessels that in most men heal into stronger penis sacks for the carriage of blood. Men can often increase the length of their penis by several inches over a period of a month with persistence. In the case of women, I am not going to make comment as I don't know.
3. Calorie reduction with modest exercise such as walking two miles each day will not only help you lose weight, but increase the chances that you will live longer. The walking is very important, but before and after you walk, you should eat a little protein, drink a little water, and stretch. This is only for people who are already in reasonable health. What you do is stop drinking milk as your only beverage for cereals and hot drinks. If your doctor advises it, you could switch entirely over to a soy milk-like beverage for coffee and tea. You will probably not want to move over totally, and a mix of soy and cows milk may not be all that bad for you. If you think that you have a cancer risk then seek advice from your doctor. Soy has estrogen that may or may not be good for you in largish amounts. As alternatives you may wish to try rice, oat or hemp milk. The next step is to work yourself away from wheat and flours. I have come off wheat cold turkey because it aggravates my digestive system. By not eating wheat and products with any wheat flour in them, I have been able to reduce my calorie intake significantly. You must judge for yourself how far you can go, but if you are serious about losing weight then by not eating anything containing processed flour, you are probably doing yourself a favour. Eat vegetables and fruits instead. Lastly, consume a small amount of wine or alcoholic beverage as an occasional treat. Remember that if you don't want to feed yourself with estrogen, you probably need to avoid beer altogether, especially if you have a breast cancer risk where estrogen is implicated.

Disclaimer to the above: The advice above is for healthy people only seeking to improve their health. Consult your specialists. You need to read what I say with a grain of salt. I could be wrong in your case. There are so many varieties of vulnerability to any methods of weight loss that I cannot assume responsibility in your case, only my own. All I can say is that I feel better myself and you should treat what I says as you would treat an old wives tale, with great suspicion. I am still waiting for those warts to disappear completely.

Dumbing down - A Verbal Art

I was at last year's London Book Fair and had sat down for a coffee and was talking to a printer from California who claimed that his paper was being used around the world and could be found in almost every book store. "You see," I said, "I am an artist, and I like to think on paper pencil in hand, and I don't like any of the papers of notepads that I am currently seeing in England. The paper is too heavy for me and not smooth enough. I once bought three notebooks in the States and they were perfect for me. I have tried high and low to find those notebooks again, but have had to give up." The man just looked at me and did not say much. "He thinks I'm a looney toon," I thought to myself.

Just then a woman asked whether she could sit at our table and I nodded affirmatively. After a while she began to chat, and asked me who I was and what I was doing at the London Book Fair. I told her that I was a former economist, who had lost his loved one to cancer, had retired, and was trying to re-invent himself by writing books, painting, and sketching. I told her that I had come to the London Book Fair as an independent publisher and had written and published my first novel as part of a series. I told her that I was a veracious reader and consumed books like cups of coffee, and that my favourite books were the forgotten tales of the sea, such as had been written by Defoe. I told her that my favourite author was Captain Frederick Marryat. I mentioned that I enjoyed his social comment which came before the really famous writers such as Mark Twain and Charles Dickens. I commented that Charles Dickens was a good writer but that I really did not enjoy his writing, possibly because I was too dumb to understand it.

She changed the subject suddenly. "Where can I see your paintings?" she asked.

"Well, I have done hundreds, but they are not normally for exhibition," I replied, adding, "Many of them are copies of famous works by famous artists, and a painted them so that I could enjoy them personally.

That's what motivated me to paint in the beginning. Now I like my paintings more than the works of famous artists and I am not letting them go."

She looked puzzled, and asked, "Why not? You could make money."

She looked persistent, so I gave her a thoughtful reply, "Yes, I could sell my paintings, but right now they make me feel rich. If I sold my paintings, I would not make enough from them to make me feels as rich as I presently feel. I don't have the ability to paint masters and their value comes from rarity and age. The value of my paintings comes from my knowledge that I painted them. I struggled to paint them and I admired the original artist enough to attempt to do a copy."

The lady intrigued me so I asked of her, "What are you doing here?"

She replied, "I have a school of good writing and I am a critique of writing. I read an author's work for the schools and advise them, and I try to get the quality of writing improved."

My mind immediately flew to shades of Miss Ronald, my Toronto English teacher with the two mastiffs. I responded, "I once had an English teacher in high school at Royal York Collegiate Institute in Toronto. It does not exist any more, but is an art school now. Anyways, she taught me English grammar. I shall never forget the pain that I went through. Now everyone is teaching me grammar and I hate it. All my employers told me that my writing sucked. They used it as an excuse not to do things they should have done. If I wrote well, they said that it was this,and if I wrote badly they said it was that. What a con!"

The woman sensed that my hackles had been raised and said out of the blue that she did not like the writing of JK Rowling and that it dumbed down the reader.

Its always the inclination of a writer to say that they do not dumb down the reader, so I said, "I don't think that I dumb down the reader with my writing in my book 'Wuh Lax and the Cosmic Lattern'"

She replied, "Would you like me to read it?"

I said, "Yes! I would like to know whether I dumb down my readers, and perhaps you could help me. Would you be prepared to comment on my book?"

I gave her my card which was made with a hard durable plastic about the size of a London transport ticket, and I gave her, for free, a hard copy of my book.

She smiled, "I would love to read your book, and I will write back and tell you what I think of it, and whether you are dumbing down your readers. I must go!"

She left the table with my book and I have not heard from her since, so I still don't know whether in her opinion I am dumbing down my readers. Let me say this, however, that one of my favourite writers is Joanna Rowling and she certainly did not dumb me down. Perhaps, it is because I am so dumb already! Her books are the best ever, and deserve to be read by millions more readers. Roll on .... Joanna!

As for whether I really dumb down my readers, I have had some response that suggests that my books are not really for children even though they have so many pictures. My feeling is that writing has not been dumbed down by authors such as JK Rowling for the very simple reason that they contain many of the new elements of the modern age of writing, which is a lot of action, humour, and many characters of different types. Kids these days can learn many more characters that I ever could when I was young. I think my limit was about six. Kids now can deal with 30 or more different characters in all sorts of social context. The problem is that we need to raise the reading capacity of our older readers who are struggling to keep up with the children.

Do you agree?

Taking a Bite From the Apple - Literally

My local grocery has started selling apples by the bag, but three types of apples within each bag, a bit of an apple deli. "My! They look nice," the check out lady exclaimed as I put them through, and added "I think I'll get some of those too!" Yes! They did look very pretty. Several were green, some were bright red, and some were a soft yellow. "I will start on the yellow ones first," I thought to myself."

Four yellow apples were eaten in a row during the next two days. Inevitably, there were only bright red and green apples left. I opted for a red apple and bit into it eagerly. What happened next was a major surprise. It started as a pain just about where one's stomach is. I was typing my blog at the time, and had to stand up. The pain had grown much sharper and was excruciating. Suddenly, I felt the pain rising up my throat and a major burst of air popped out my mouth, "UUUuuuuuuuuppppp" or something to that effect. The pain in my stomach subsided a little, but another "Uupppp" occured and then another. I sensed that the saliva in my mouth was foaming, so I rushed to the kitchen sink and spat out everything several times, all the while I was hiccuping "Uuupppp", "Uuupppp." About ten hiccups later and having spat out everything I could about a dozen times, I felt much better. "What the hell! I wondered to myself

The fact was that the apple tasted really good, but for some reason I had reacted badly to it. My stomach knew something that I did not. This time I thought, "I want to eat more apple, but I don't want to burp. What do I do? I didn't have the same problem with the yellow apples. What is going on?" The fact was that the red apples looked prettier than the yellow apples, but I recalled having had problems with red apples before, but not so obviously. "What do they put on the apples," I wondered.

My thoughts are that different apple growers treat their apples differently. Its not just the apples that the store is selling but apples that have been treated in some way by growers. My thoughts are that apples should be labelled in some way, and sure enough they are. You peel off a tiny label telling you who grew or who is distributing the apples. The final stage of the retailer is somewhat interesting because the retailer can bag apples to appeal to buyers and they can mix apples from different growers.

What we have here is a failure to communicate something to the buyer, me, the guy that sits down thinking all apples are the same. "What a mug I am!" I thought. I decided that from then on I would skin the red apples, but eat the yellow apples unskinned. What do you think I should do with the green apples? To peel or not to peel! I will try eating a green apple with the skin on. What do you think will be the result?