KMO
11-25-2007, 02:42 PM
I got this from a listener. In all honesty, I read the first paragraph and then set it aside for the future. I have a concentration-destroying headache and don't think I'll tackle this today, but the author obviously put a lot of energy into it, so I thought I'd give it a bit of a wider audience.
Hello KMO,
I thought you might be interested in this letter (e-mail) I sent Professor Michael Persinger.
I also have somethings to say about the last couple of shows you had but I have not the time know to get into it. I will send you my thoughts on the subject later. I like the way you do your show and have enjoyed listening a lot.
This is the letter I wrote:
Response to "Psychotropic drugs and nature of reality (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4292093832329014323)" by Professor Michael Persinger:
Dear Professor Persinger,
I find your work to be very interesting yet I have some problems with your conclusions. I have no problem with your basic brain chemistry thesis. I understand that brain chemistry and psychotropic drugs have such chemical similarities that to the brain they are basically identical. I understand that the chemical receptors are already in the brain that's why we feel the affects of these drugs.
I find no problem with your analysis of the brain and its functions where I depart from your thesis is in your conclusions. I find that here, as many scholars before you have done, you have the tendency to simply speculate about how the mind interprets brain chemical reactions. (to me these are separate entities mind and brain) There are many points I feel you have over looked that simple brain chemistry can not easily explain. This is possibly due, I believe, to the effect isolation has on studies within the confines of a university system. Actual life experiences can not and never will be able to be reproduced in a laboratory.
First I have to ask two questions.
1: How much time have you spent with the helmet on yourself?
2: Have you ever experienced any of the psychoactive substances you refer to in your study?
How you answer these questions will shed some light on how much of your conclusions can be attributed to speculation. I am aware that a scientific reason for not having tried either can be made. From my point of view though, if none of these have been tried by you personally I can't see how any actual conclusions can be made. It is akin to someone writing a travel journal for someplace they have never been. Without extensive experience with both all comparisons are basically coming from second hand knowledge. If these have simply been tasted then I would say it is likely the same travel journal has been written. Except for now it has been written about the view from the airport or maybe the hotel without any real depth in exploration.
My real problem with your conclusions is, from what I've read and seen, the lack of any reason given for external phenomenon. I am referring to your lumping together all sorts of what we call mystical experiences, I.E. drugs, alien abductions and divine visions. I could agree with the notion that a alien abduction experience is highly questionable as to the dream like circumstances of most reports. If that were the end of it I could see that one could easily make a brain chemistry argument for the experience. Unfortunately it is just not that simple. What of the thousands actually millions of eye witness that are seeing what we call "UFO's" in large groups at the same time and in multiple locations. As well as multiple video cameras recording the same event. One case in Mexico City even has the major news crews filming the event in broad daylight as many others with their video cameras film along side them. How can brain chemistry explain that the governments of France, England, Mexico and Brazil as well as others have come forth with information collected as far back as 1947 on the phenomenon. These reports include photography, video and radar reports all very material and external forms of verifiable data. In some very rare cases even physical evidence.
I understand that the abduction experience by itself looks at face value to be a purely mental phenomenon. One could easily attribute the brain chemistry argument to the cause if it were that simple. It is just not that simple. So then one is faced with your next assumption in that all God associated or spiritual experience is again simply brain chemistry going wild. Well again I am looking at the external phenomenon which brain chemistry alone could never fully explain. While most spiritual experience is by its nature a very personal experience it is rare that there is external phenomenon to go along with it. Although there are some recorded events that come to mind, I will skip this issue and give you that one for now. I would rather go on to one of my favorites and discuss the psychotropics.
Ok and now for the psychotropic drug issue. If as you say it is all in the head then there could never be any effects that could influence things outside of the mind/body perspective. In my extensive experience that is just not the case. I personally have experienced many cross over events. Please explain if you will how two people can see the same so called "hallucination"? Or how the one experiencing drug can have an affects on things like animals and people who have not taken the drugs but are simply in the proximity of the person on drugs. I am referring to what is commonly called the contact high. Or as in many cases I have observed, there can be an actual affect on weather patterns.
I am currently writing a book on the many experiences like this that I have had. I will give you an example of just one that I believe can not be explained simply by brain chemistry.
One year (1983 I think) at a very large party on the Stanford University campus in California. It was our intention to pay tribute to The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test of the early LSD pioneers. We had very large doses of LSD in apple juice as well as Psilocybe cubensis on hand for all who wanted to partake. Oh and of course copious amounts of marijuana as well. There was at least three hundred people who came to this party and I would roughly estimate more than half had at least one of the psychedelic substances provided. Those that I knew as well as myself enjoyed both. Needless to say I have rarely seen this many people tripping out of their gourds except for at a Grateful Dead concert. At the beginning of the party a group of us went up to the roof to smoke a joint and meditate, to give thanks and say a short prayer for all the people to have a good time that night. It is our belief that focusing the psychic energy would benefit everyone involved in a positive direction. The phenomenon began while we were on the roof. One of the people on the roof with us, a student of the university, noticed a strange event taking place in the clouds. He pointed to the clouds separating directly above us and compared it to cellular mitosis. He saw it as a cosmic sign of some kind prophetic of the trip we were all embarking on. That in itself would not be extraordinary but being that it was a cloudy and stormy night this was the only place in the clouds now that you could see the stars. Still not an event worth mentioning until it became clear that this anomaly was to remain the entire night. At anytime throughout the night you could look up and see stars in a crystal clear sky while the surrounding area was completely filled with dark rolling clouds. Stranger still was, as I said it was a stormy and very windy night, you could see the clouds moving. They would roll in towards the house then separate and move around the space above the house in a perfect circle and then close up again after passing the space directly above the house. This took place all night long never changing until the storm passed and the sun had risen on the next day. Ok, so everyone saw this event and commented on its miraculous nature. Many ideas of what it all meant were discussed throughout the next day.
Continued in The God Spot: Part 2
Hello KMO,
I thought you might be interested in this letter (e-mail) I sent Professor Michael Persinger.
I also have somethings to say about the last couple of shows you had but I have not the time know to get into it. I will send you my thoughts on the subject later. I like the way you do your show and have enjoyed listening a lot.
This is the letter I wrote:
Response to "Psychotropic drugs and nature of reality (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4292093832329014323)" by Professor Michael Persinger:
Dear Professor Persinger,
I find your work to be very interesting yet I have some problems with your conclusions. I have no problem with your basic brain chemistry thesis. I understand that brain chemistry and psychotropic drugs have such chemical similarities that to the brain they are basically identical. I understand that the chemical receptors are already in the brain that's why we feel the affects of these drugs.
I find no problem with your analysis of the brain and its functions where I depart from your thesis is in your conclusions. I find that here, as many scholars before you have done, you have the tendency to simply speculate about how the mind interprets brain chemical reactions. (to me these are separate entities mind and brain) There are many points I feel you have over looked that simple brain chemistry can not easily explain. This is possibly due, I believe, to the effect isolation has on studies within the confines of a university system. Actual life experiences can not and never will be able to be reproduced in a laboratory.
First I have to ask two questions.
1: How much time have you spent with the helmet on yourself?
2: Have you ever experienced any of the psychoactive substances you refer to in your study?
How you answer these questions will shed some light on how much of your conclusions can be attributed to speculation. I am aware that a scientific reason for not having tried either can be made. From my point of view though, if none of these have been tried by you personally I can't see how any actual conclusions can be made. It is akin to someone writing a travel journal for someplace they have never been. Without extensive experience with both all comparisons are basically coming from second hand knowledge. If these have simply been tasted then I would say it is likely the same travel journal has been written. Except for now it has been written about the view from the airport or maybe the hotel without any real depth in exploration.
My real problem with your conclusions is, from what I've read and seen, the lack of any reason given for external phenomenon. I am referring to your lumping together all sorts of what we call mystical experiences, I.E. drugs, alien abductions and divine visions. I could agree with the notion that a alien abduction experience is highly questionable as to the dream like circumstances of most reports. If that were the end of it I could see that one could easily make a brain chemistry argument for the experience. Unfortunately it is just not that simple. What of the thousands actually millions of eye witness that are seeing what we call "UFO's" in large groups at the same time and in multiple locations. As well as multiple video cameras recording the same event. One case in Mexico City even has the major news crews filming the event in broad daylight as many others with their video cameras film along side them. How can brain chemistry explain that the governments of France, England, Mexico and Brazil as well as others have come forth with information collected as far back as 1947 on the phenomenon. These reports include photography, video and radar reports all very material and external forms of verifiable data. In some very rare cases even physical evidence.
I understand that the abduction experience by itself looks at face value to be a purely mental phenomenon. One could easily attribute the brain chemistry argument to the cause if it were that simple. It is just not that simple. So then one is faced with your next assumption in that all God associated or spiritual experience is again simply brain chemistry going wild. Well again I am looking at the external phenomenon which brain chemistry alone could never fully explain. While most spiritual experience is by its nature a very personal experience it is rare that there is external phenomenon to go along with it. Although there are some recorded events that come to mind, I will skip this issue and give you that one for now. I would rather go on to one of my favorites and discuss the psychotropics.
Ok and now for the psychotropic drug issue. If as you say it is all in the head then there could never be any effects that could influence things outside of the mind/body perspective. In my extensive experience that is just not the case. I personally have experienced many cross over events. Please explain if you will how two people can see the same so called "hallucination"? Or how the one experiencing drug can have an affects on things like animals and people who have not taken the drugs but are simply in the proximity of the person on drugs. I am referring to what is commonly called the contact high. Or as in many cases I have observed, there can be an actual affect on weather patterns.
I am currently writing a book on the many experiences like this that I have had. I will give you an example of just one that I believe can not be explained simply by brain chemistry.
One year (1983 I think) at a very large party on the Stanford University campus in California. It was our intention to pay tribute to The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test of the early LSD pioneers. We had very large doses of LSD in apple juice as well as Psilocybe cubensis on hand for all who wanted to partake. Oh and of course copious amounts of marijuana as well. There was at least three hundred people who came to this party and I would roughly estimate more than half had at least one of the psychedelic substances provided. Those that I knew as well as myself enjoyed both. Needless to say I have rarely seen this many people tripping out of their gourds except for at a Grateful Dead concert. At the beginning of the party a group of us went up to the roof to smoke a joint and meditate, to give thanks and say a short prayer for all the people to have a good time that night. It is our belief that focusing the psychic energy would benefit everyone involved in a positive direction. The phenomenon began while we were on the roof. One of the people on the roof with us, a student of the university, noticed a strange event taking place in the clouds. He pointed to the clouds separating directly above us and compared it to cellular mitosis. He saw it as a cosmic sign of some kind prophetic of the trip we were all embarking on. That in itself would not be extraordinary but being that it was a cloudy and stormy night this was the only place in the clouds now that you could see the stars. Still not an event worth mentioning until it became clear that this anomaly was to remain the entire night. At anytime throughout the night you could look up and see stars in a crystal clear sky while the surrounding area was completely filled with dark rolling clouds. Stranger still was, as I said it was a stormy and very windy night, you could see the clouds moving. They would roll in towards the house then separate and move around the space above the house in a perfect circle and then close up again after passing the space directly above the house. This took place all night long never changing until the storm passed and the sun had risen on the next day. Ok, so everyone saw this event and commented on its miraculous nature. Many ideas of what it all meant were discussed throughout the next day.
Continued in The God Spot: Part 2