David Icke - We Are Here To Change The World!

From jay4louise2 - Dec 31: 2012

16 Reasons To Have Daily Sex

© Prevent Disease

From Prevent Disease - Dec 30: 2012

Editor

Stressed, burdened with life's difficult problems and fear that your health is declining? Then sex is the answer to happiness, longevity and a healthy body. You don't agree? Well, here is a list of the health benefits of sex, so do it daily to experience complete pleasure. These are 16 reasons to have sex today!

 1. De-stress
Sex helps you reduce stress. When deep breathing exercises fail to de-stress you, sex will do the needful.

During sex your body produces dopamine, a substance that fights stress hormones, endorphins, aka "happiness hormones" and oxytocin, a desire-enhancing hormone secreted by the pituitary gland.
In a study, published in the Public Library of Science journal, three neuroscience researchers conducted a test on male rats and found that the sexually active rats were less anxious than rats with no sexual activity.

2. Great Form of Exercise
Making love is a form of physical activity. During intercourse, the physiological changes in your body are consistent with a workout. You must have noticed that the respiratory rate rises, which means you get tired. Hence, you burn calories. If you have sex three times a week for 15 minutes (but we know you can do better than that) you'll burn about 7.500 calories in a year. That's the equivalent of jogging 75 miles! Heavy breathing raises the amount of oxygen in your cells, and the testosterone produced during sex keeps your bones and muscles strong.

3. Lowers high blood pressure
Hugs and sex can improve your blood pressure. Sex reduces diastolic blood pressure, that is, the bottom number while reading blood pressure.

Researchers with the University of Paisley conducted an experiment on the same. They concluded that sex improves blood pressure.

4. Builds your immunity
Trying to fight the sniffles? Sex is the answer to fight cold and other health problems; sex can boost your immunity.

Immunoglobulin A, an antigen that fights the flu increases when the frequency of sex increases.

5. Makes You Look Younger
Making love three times a week can make you look 10 years younger, claims a Scottish researcher. "It's good for you to have good sex," says David Weeks, a clinical neuropsychologist at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital, whose study on the effects of sex on aging appears in his book, Secrets of the Superyoung.

6. Healthy heart
Sex helps you burn calories but it can also improve your heart. Sex will take care of stroke and heart attacks, you just have to enjoy the moment.

Scientists with New England Research Institute examined the effect of sex on the heart. The study concluded that men are 45 percent less likely to experience cardiovascular diseases. But the study fails to study the effect of sex on a woman's heart.

7. Pain relief
Pleasure is the measure to beat out the pain. Do you experience migraines and body pain? Well sex is the answer. But if you experience back pain, it is best to consult a doctor.

Dr. George E. Erlich, an arthritis specialist from Philadelphia conducted a study on the link between arthritis and sex. He narrows down that patients who engaged in sex experienced less pain.

8. Builds trust and intimacy
The act of sex spikes the hormone oxytocin; this hormone is responsible for your happiness and love. If your feel your relationship is falling out, there is trust or you're worried that your partner will stray away, then sex will dispel these doubts. The hormone oxytocin builds trust and brings couples closer, and cupid too.

9. Less chances of cancer
Regular ejaculation reduces your chances of developing prostate cancer. In an Australian study men who ejaculated 21 times a month were least likely to develop cancer. It is further supported by other researches that sexual intercourse reduces the risk of prostrate cancer.

10. Stronger pelvic muscles
Sex involves the use of several muscles; hence regular sexual intercourse can help you develop stronger pelvic muscles. Further, since the act of sex involves a range of muscles, it also helps strengthen these muscles - for ex: quads, your core, and the upper back. Through regular sex, you can also maintain a strong bladder and bowel function.

Strong muscles, calorie burner, improves heart health - sex seems to take care of you.

11. Prostate Protection
Most of the fluid you ejaculate is secreted by the prostate gland. If you stop ejaculating, the fluid stays in the gland, which tends to swell, causing lots of problems. Regular ejaculation will wash those fluids out and ensure the well being of your prostate until old age. Problems may also occur when you suddenly change the frequency of ejaculations.

12. Induces sleep
After that great, lovely workout you are bound to get good sleep. But guess what? Sex works the same way as exercise. The increased heart rate leads to increased post-coital relaxation. Sex could be the next thing for insomniacs! So what really happens:
- Sex can relax you, hence if you are already tired, the act of sex will induce sleep.
- When men ejaculate they become lethargic, this can make them sleepy.

13. Regular periods
Apparently sex can improve your menstrual cycle. Sex regulates hormones, which in turn regulate the menstrual cycle. Sex reduces stress, which is one of the reasons women miss their periods. Sex seems like a better option than pills.

14. Prevents Erectile Dysfunctions
Fifty per cent of men older than 40 suffer from erectile dysfunctions and all young men fear the moment when they won't be able to get it up any more. The best medicine against impotence is...sex. An erection keeps the blood flowing through your penile arteries, so the tissue stays healthy. Plus, doctors compare an erection to an athletic reflex: the more you train the more capable you are to perform.

15. Live longer
A healthy heart, stronger muscles, increased circulation of oxygen and happiness are some of the factors that add life to the years and as a result - years to your life.

A study published in the British Medical Journal reveals that men who engaged in sex often live twice as those who rarely had any action.

16. Healthier semen
If you're trying to conceive, you increase the volume of semen if you have sex regularly. Regular sex replaces old sperms from the testicles. If there is a natural build of sperms it can lead to DNA damage.

Buried Christian Empire Casts New Light on Early Islam

© Paul Yule
The "crowned man" relief found in Zafar,
Yemen is seen as evidence that there was a
Christian empire in the region
before Islam took hold.

From Signs of the Times - Dec 21: 2012

Spiegel

 Archeologists are studying the ruins of a buried Christian empire in the highlands of Yemen. The sites have sparked a number of questions about the early history of Islam. Was there once a church in Mecca?

The commandment "Make yourself no graven image" has long been strictly followed in the Arab world. There are very few statues of the caliphs and ancient kings of the region. The pagan gods in the desert were usually worshipped in an "aniconic" way, that is, as beings without form.

Muhammad had a beard, but there are no portraits of him.

But now a narcissistic work of human self-portrayal has turned up in Yemen. It is a figure, chiseled in stone, which apparently stems from the era of the Prophet.

Paul Yule, an archeologist from the southwestern German city of Heidelberg, has studied the relief, which is 1.70 meters (5'7") tall, in Zafar, some 930 kilometers (581 miles) south of Mecca. It depicts a man with chains of jewelry, curls and spherical eyes. Yule dates the image to the time around 530 AD.

The German archeologist excavated sites in the rocky highlands of Yemen, an occupation that turned quite dangerous recently because of political circumstances in the country. On his last mission, Yule lost 8 kilograms (18 lbs.) and his equipment was confiscated.

Nevertheless, he is pleased, because he was able to bring notes, bits of debris and bones back to Heidelberg. Yule has concluded that Zafar was the center of an Arab tribal confederation, a realm that was two million square kilometers (about 772,000 square miles) large and exerted its influence all the way to Mecca.

Read more..

Howard Zinn: "On Human Nature and Aggression."

From dsandeford - May 5: 2006

Howard Zinn, "On Human Nature and Aggression." From _You Can't Be Neutral On a Moving Train_, 2004 [DVD]. DVD available from firstrunfeatures.com.

Martha Stout demolishes Kevin Dutton's book, The Wisdom of Psychopaths

From Sott.net - Dec 14: 2012

By Martha Stout

The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies, and Serial Killers Can Teach Us About Success, by Kevin Dutton

Years ago, as a student, I attended some lectures by a prominent anthropologist who regaled his listeners with odd and engaging stories about a group of indigenous people he had lived among in a far-flung corner of the planet. The tales stuck in the mind. Indeed, some of them were so amazing that I came away from his talks sure that counterintuitive but vital truths about human behavior had just been revealed. Only during the final lecture was I granted an inkling that these truths might not bear much relationship to reality. Fairly gleeful in her disdain, one of his indentured graduate assistants whispered to me that, in the field, the anthropologist had offered his subjects chocolate bars in exchange for stories about themselves - the more fantastic the stories, the more plentiful the candy. Avidly scrawling notes, his audience had become an illustration of how easily the foreign and the fascinating can assume the aura of science.

Though I have no reason to think chocolate was involved, I am concerned that a similar phenomenon may occur among readers of The Wisdom of Psychopaths by Kevin Dutton, a research psychologist at the University of Oxford. Dutton's eye-catching thesis is this: "Psychopathy is like sunlight. Overexposure can hasten one's demise in grotesque, carcinogenic fashion. But regulated exposure at controlled and optimal levels can have a significant positive impact on well-being and quality of life." Psychopathy, proposes Dutton, is "personality with a tan."

Strangely, nowhere in this book about psychopathy does Dutton accurately define psychopathy, so I will do so here. Psychopathy is a disorder of brain and behavior, the central characteristic of which is the complete absence of conscience. All of its other pathological features (such as callousness, habitual lying, and ruthlessness) emanate from this defining deficit. Yet, as a tip-off to the major fallacy in his argument, Dutton does not once discuss the concept of conscience, and, in the entire body of his book he mentions the word itself - conscience - a total of four times, and then only in passing.

What Dutton does include are elegant metaphors, a generous number of extremely well-written personal stories, and many allusions to intriguing psychological and neuropsychological studies. Unfortunately, most of the science that he cites possesses a relationship to his thesis that is equivocal at best, and at worst downright misleading. Overall, the book leaves its reader with the impression that psychopathy consists of fearlessness, "irrepressible irreverence," and a life unburdened by what other people think. The reality is more literal: no one matters to a psychopath.

Dutton's claim, if stated in language that is starker and more straightforward than he is willing to use, would be this: people who are devoid of conscience offer us some wise lessons. In particular, our leaders need to consider the mental and behavioral instruction that conscienceless people can provide. To support his argument, he asserts that Neil Armstrong's ability to control his fear while executing a near-impossible lunar landing involved a temporary version of the psychopath's permanent emotional detachment, which leaves the psychopath preternaturally calm. (For readers interested in how people achieve ideal performance, I recommend any of the books on the concept of flow by the eminent psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, whom Dutton mentions only glancingly and inaccurately.)

There are other surprising misunderstandings related to the ostensible lessons psychopaths can impart: Dutton confuses "mental toughness" and "turning the other cheek" with just not giving a damn, and the mental discipline of mindfulness with the psychopath's indifference to future consequences. He conflates the permanent lack of emotion in "functional psychopaths" with the normal person's ability to regulate emotions when decisions must be made under pressure. He seems to view normal emotional responsiveness as a maladaptive distraction. And he decides that, since the psychopath is fearlessly drawn to risks, the psychopath is better equipped to handle an emergency: a psychopath would be more likely to race into a burning building to rescue someone within. Really? Why an individual who feels neither conscience nor caring would wish to save another's life is difficult to imagine, and Dutton's repeated assertions that one might turn the predator's ice-cold focus toward humane endeavors reveals an essential misunderstanding of the nature of the predator.

Dutton's real argument seems to be that sometimes we could all use a little of what he terms "the seven deadly wins" - ruthlessness, charm, focus, mental toughness, fearlessness, mindfulness, and action. Yes, I daresay we could - but those behavioral features do not represent a "dose of psychopathy," to use Dutton's expression. In reality, a touch of psychopathy would mean a malignant streak of brutality, oiliness, predatory single-mindedness, callousness, carelessness, exclusive self-involvement, and clinical impulsivity.

Perhaps the most surprising obfuscation of all occurs as Dutton plays fast and loose with the definition of empathy. He blurs the distinction between cognitive empathy (knowing that someone is experiencing a feeling) and emotional empathy (the ability to experience that feeling oneself), and having created this fuzziness, he declares - despite the mountain of scientific data to the contrary - that psychopaths are emotionally empathic.

Like so many of us who have good hearts, Dutton would like very much to demonstrate that not every psychopath is utterly heartless. (The first sentence of the book is a startling declaration that his own father was a psychopath.) He summons a conjectural subset, called "functional psychopaths," who are somewhat warmer. As it happens, there is an existing diagnostic term for the nearly psychopathic - the self-centered, unempathic people who nonetheless, in their own way, can love. The term is narcissism; and, reading with a psychologist's eye to the distinction, I suspect that a number of the undiagnosed individuals described by Dutton, including perhaps his charismatic father, were narcissists, rather than living beyond the boundary line in the icy wasteland of psychopathy. If Dutton had titled his book "The Wisdom of Narcissists," he might have made a more credible case: psychologists largely agree that human beings need a certain amount of "normal" narcissism to be healthy. But narcissism varies by degree. The emotional black hole of consciencelessness does not.

It is quite true that the majority of psychopaths are nonviolent, and that all too many "use their detached, unflinching, and charismatic personalities to succeed in mainstream society." (This fact has been emphasized by several writers before Dutton.) But - unsettling as it may be to understand - these mainstream-society-dwelling individuals do not constitute some special type of tamped-down wannabes who have retained a "functional" level of human warmth, as Dutton proposes. They are psychopaths, cold and conscienceless. We judge some of these people to be worse than others because some of them exhibit more horrific behaviors. We consider the psychopathic serial killer more terrifying than the psychopathic person who steals his employees' pensions. But the underlying pathology is the same. Psychopathy is a profound and tragic disorder, one for which, at present, there is no cure. No matter how successful he or she may be, the psychopath is not wise. He or she is a loveless and empty individual whose life will be wasted, inexorably.

If you are entertained by well-written tales from a research psychologist who has used himself as a subject in a questionably pertinent neurological lab procedure, has toured Italy's Museum of Serial Killers, and has visited some actual psychopaths at Broadmoor Hospital in England; and if you have an interest in reading about famously pathological criminals - such as the serial killer who inspired Hannibal Lecter - then perhaps you will enjoy Kevin Dutton's book. If you want a scientifically informed argument that speaks meaningfully to the arresting question raised by its title, you will be disappointed. The book neither answers that question nor validly associates psychopaths with stoic saints and contemplative Buddhist monks. As a professional who has spent decades studying the bleak disorder of consciencelessness, I can say with a fair degree of certainty that there is no wisdom in psychopathy. There is only an irredeemable emptiness that should not and cannot be served up in "doses."

Martha Stout, Ph.D., is the author of The Myth of Sanity, The Paranoia Switch, and The Sociopath Next Door.

David Icke - Truth Vibrations (Breaking Free of The Matrix)

From jay4louise2 - Dec 27: 2012

David talks about the incoming Truth Vibrations, his experience of de-linking from the matrix and following intuition.
http://www.davidicke.com/

Alan Watts - The Game Theory of Ethics

From watercourseway1 - Nov 26: 2011

Santa's 'flying' reindeer story traced back to magic mushrooms

© David Carillet/Shutterstock

From Sott.net - Dec 21: 2012

By Douglas Main | Live Science

Shamans in the Siberian and Arctic regions used to give dried Amanita muscaria mushroom as gifts on the winter solstice.

This Christmas, like many before it and many yet to come, the story of Santa and his flying reindeer will be told, including how the "jolly old elf" flies on his sleigh throughout the entire world in one night, giving gifts to all the good children. But according to one theory, the story of Santa and his flying reindeer can be traced to an unlikely source: hallucinogenic or "magic" mushrooms.

"Santa is a modern counterpart of a shaman, who consumed mind-altering plants and fungi to commune with the spirit world," said John Rush, an anthropologist and instructor at Sierra College in Rocklin, Calif.

According to the theory, the legend of Santa derives from shamans in the Siberian and Arctic regions who dropped into locals' teepeelike homes with a bag full of hallucinatory mushrooms as presents in late December, Rush said. "As the story goes, up until a few hundred years ago these practicing shamans or priests connected to the older traditions would collect Amanita muscaria (the Holy Mushroom), dry them, and then give them as gifts on the winter solstice," Rush told LiveScience. "Because snow is usually blocking doors, there was an opening in the roof through which people entered and exited, thus the chimney story."

But that's just the beginning of the symbolic connections between the Amanita muscaria mushroom (at right) and the iconography of Christmas, according to several historians and ethnomycologists, or people who study the influence fungi has had on human societies. Of course, not all scientists agree that the Santa story is tied to a hallucinogen.

Presents under the tree

© MNN

In his book Mushrooms and Mankind (The Book Tree, 2003) the late author James Arthur points out that Amanita muscaria, also known as fly agaric, lives throughout the Northern Hemisphere under conifers and birch trees, with which the fungi - which is deep red with white flecks - has a symbiotic relationship. This partially explains the practice of the Christmas tree, and the placement of bright red-and-white presents underneath, which look like Amanita mushrooms, he wrote.

"Why do people bring pine trees into their houses at the Winter Solstice, placing brightly colored (red and white) packages under their boughs, as gifts to show their love for each other ... ?" he wrote. "It is because, underneath the pine bough is the exact location where one would find this 'Most Sacred' substance, the Amanita muscaria, in the wild."

Reindeer are common in Siberia, and seek out these hallucinogenic fungi, as the area's human inhabitants have been known to do. Donald Pfister, a biologist who studies fungi at Harvard University, suggests that Siberian tribesmen who ingested fly agaric may have hallucinated into thinking that reindeer were flying.

'Flying' reindeer

"At first glance, one thinks it's ridiculous, but it's not," said Carl Ruck, a professor of classics at Boston University. "Whoever heard of reindeer flying? I think it's becoming general knowledge that Santa is taking a 'trip' with his reindeer," Ruck said.

"Amongst the Siberian shamans, you have an animal spirit you can journey with in your vision quest," Ruck continued. " And reindeer are common and familiar to people in eastern Siberia. They also have a tradition of dressing up like the [mushroom] ... they dress up in red suits with white spots."

Ornaments shaped like Amanita mushrooms and other depictions of the fungi are also prevalent in Christmas decorations throughout the world, particularly in Scandinavia and northern Europe, Pfister points out. That said, Pfister made it clear that the connection between modern-day Christmas and the ancestral practice of eating mushrooms is a coincidence, and he doesn't know about any direct link.

Many of these traditions were merged or projected upon Saint Nicholas, a fourth-century saint who was known for his generosity, as the story goes.

The Santa connection

There is little debate about the consumption of mushrooms by Arctic and Siberian tribes' people and shamans, but the connection to Christmas traditions is more tenuous, or "mysterious," as Ruck put it.

Many of the modern details of the modern-day American Santa Claus come from "A Visit from St. Nicholas" (which later became famous as "'Twas the Night Before Christmas"), an 1823 poem credited to Clement Clarke Moore, an aristocratic academic who lived in New York City.

The origins of Moore's vision are unclear, although Arthur, Rush and Ruck all think he probably drew from northern Europe motifs that derive from Siberian or Arctic shamanic traditions. At the very least, Arthur wrote, Santa's sleigh and reindeer are references back to various related Northern European mythology. For example, the Norse god Thor (known in German as "Donner") flew in a chariot drawn by two goats, which have been replaced in the modern retelling by Santa's reindeer, Arthur wrote.

Ruck points to Rudolf as another example of the mushroom imagery resurfacing: his nose looks exactly like a red mushroom, he said. "It's amazing that a reindeer with a red-mushroom nose is at the head, leading the others."

Some doubt

Other historians were unaware of a connection between Santa and shamans or magic mushrooms, including Stephen Nissenbaum, who wrote a book about the origins of Christmas traditions, and Penne Restad, at the University of Texas.

One historian, Ronald Hutton, told NPR that the theory of a mushroom-Santa connection is off-base. "If you look at the evidence of Siberian shamanism, which I've done," Hutton said, "you find that shamans didn't travel by sleigh, didn't usually deal with reindeer spirits, very rarely took the mushrooms to get trances, didn't have red-and-white clothes." But Rush and Ruck say these statements are incorrect; shamans did deal with reindeer spirits, and the depiction of their clothes' coloring has more to do with the colors of the mushroom than the shamans' actual garb. As for sleighs, the point isn't the exact mode of travel, but that the "trip" involves transportation to a different, celestial realm, Rush said.

"People who know about shamanism accept this story," Ruck said. "Is there any other reason that Santa lives in the North Pole? It is a tradition that can be traced back to Siberia."

What did you forget? - Alan Watts

From Tragedyand Hope - Dec 22: 2012

Alan Watts ask a simple yet profound question.."What did you forget?"

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http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tragedy-and-Hope/122913764534469

Symbols of Enlightenment: Feed the Fire Films "Lotus Love"

From FTF1R3F1LM5 - Dec 22: 2012

Pagan Roots? 5 Surprising Facts About Christmas

image

From Live Science - Dec 22: 2012

By Stephanie Pappas

When you gather around the Christmas tree or stuff goodies into a stocking, you're taking part in traditions that stretch back thousands of years — long before Christianity entered the mix.

Pagan, or non-Christian, traditions show up in this beloved winter holiday, a consequence of early church leaders melding Jesus' nativity celebration with pre-existing midwinter festivals. Since then, Christmas traditions have warped over time, arriving at their current state a little more than a century ago.

Read on for some of the surprising origins of Christmas cheer, and find out why Christmas was once banned in New England.

1. Early Christians had a soft spot for pagans

It's a mistake to say that our modern Christmas traditions come directly from pre-Christian paganism, said Ronald Hutton, a historian at Bristol University in the United Kingdom. However, he said, you'd be equally wrong to believe that Christmas is a modern phenomenon. As Christians spread their religion into Europe in the first centuries A.D., they ran into people living by a variety of local and regional religious creeds.

Christian missionaries lumped all of these people together under the umbrella term "pagan," said Philip Shaw, who researches early Germanic languages and Old English at Leicester University in the U.K. The term is related to the Latin word meaning "field," Shaw told LiveScience. The lingual link makes sense, he said, because early European Christianity was an urban phenomenon, while paganism persisted longer in rustic areas.

Early Christians wanted to convert pagans, Shaw said, but they were also fascinated by their traditions.

"Christians of that period are quite interested in paganism," he said. "It's obviously something they think is a bad thing, but it's also something they think is worth remembering. It's what their ancestors did." [In Photos: Early Christian Rome]

Perhaps that's why pagan traditions remained even as Christianity took hold. The Christmas tree is a 17th-century German invention, University of Bristol's Hutton told LiveScience, but it clearly derives from the pagan practice of bringing greenery indoors to decorate in midwinter. The modern Santa Claus is a direct descendent of England's Father Christmas, who was not originally a gift-giver. However, Father Christmas and his other European variations are modern incarnations of old pagan ideas about spirits who traveled the sky in midwinter, Hutton said.

2. We all want that warm Christmas glow

But why this fixation on partying in midwinter, anyway? According to historians, it's a natural time for a feast. In an agricultural society, the harvest work is done for the year, and there's nothing left to be done in the fields.

"It's a time when you have some time to devote to your religious life," said Shaw. "But also it's a period when, frankly, everyone needs cheering up."

The dark days that culminate with the shortest day of the year ­— the winter solstice — could be lightened with feasts and decorations, Hutton said.

"If you happen to live in a region in which midwinter brings striking darkness and cold and hunger, then the urge to have a celebration at the very heart of it to avoid going mad or falling into deep depression is very, very strong," he said.

Stephen Nissenbaum, author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist "The Battle for Christmas" (Vintage, 1997), agreed.

"Even now when solstice means not all that much because you can get rid of the darkness with the flick of an electric light switch, even now, it's a very powerful season," he told LIveScience.

3. The Church was slow to embrace Christmas

Despite the spread of Christianity, midwinter festivals did not become Christmas for hundreds of years. The Bible gives no reference to when Jesus was born, which wasn't a problem for early Christians, Nissenbaum said.

"It never occurred to them that they needed to celebrate his birthday," he said.
With no Biblical directive to do so and no mention in the Gospels of the correct date, it wasn't until the fourth century that church leaders in Rome embraced the holiday. At this time, Nissenbaum said, many people had turned to a belief the Church found heretical: That Jesus had never existed as a man, but as a sort of spiritual entity.

"If you want to show that Jesus was a real human being just like every other human being, not just somebody who appeared like a hologram, then what better way to think of him being born in a normal, humble human way than to celebrate his birth?" Nissenbaum said. [Religious Mysteries: 8 Alleged Relics of Jesus]

Midwinter festivals, with their pagan roots, were already widely celebrated, Nissenbaum said. And the date had a pleasing philosophical fit with festivals celebrating the lengthening days after the winter solstice (which fell on Dec. 21 this year). "O, how wonderfully acted Providence that on that day on which that Sun was born … Christ should be born," one Cyprian text read.

4. The Puritans hated the holiday

But if the Catholic Church gradually came to embrace Christmas, the Protestant Reformation gave the holiday a good knock on the chin. In the 16th century, Christmas became a casualty of this church schism, with reformist-minded Protestants considering it little better than paganism, Nissenbaum said. This likely had something to do with the "raucous, rowdy and sometimes bawdy fashion" in which Christmas was celebrated, he added.

In England under Oliver Cromwell, Christmas and other saints' days were banned, and in New England it was illegal to celebrate Christmas for about 25 years in the 1600s, Nissenbaum said. Forget people saying, "Happy holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas," he said.

"If you want to look at a real 'War on Christmas,' you've got to look at the Puritans," he said. "They banned it!"

5. Gifts are a new (and surprisingly controversial) tradition

While gift-giving may seem inextricably tied to Christmas, it used to be that people looked forward to opening presents on New Year's Day.

"They were a blessing for people to make them feel good as the year ends," Hutton said. It wasn't until the Victorian era of the 1800s that gift-giving shifted to Christmas. According to the Royal Collection, Queen Victoria's children got Christmas Eve gifts in 1850, including a sword and armor. In 1841, Victoria gave her husband, Prince Albert, a miniature portrait of her as a 7-year-old; in 1859, she gave him a book of poetry by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

All of this gift-giving, along with the secular embrace of Christmas, now has some religious groups steamed, Nissenbaum said. The consumerism of Christmas shopping seems, to some, to contradict the religious goal of celebrating Jesus Christ's birth. In some ways, Nissenbaum said, excessive spending is the modern equivalent of the revelry and drunkenness that made the Puritans frown.

"There's always been a push and pull, and it's taken different forms," he said. "It might have been alcohol then, and now it's these glittering toys."

Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas or LiveScience @livescience. We're also on Facebook & Google+.

Does the Bible Make Americans More Violent?

From Alternet - Dec 21: 2012

By Valerie Tarico

Americans can be notoriously prudish about sex, yet our entertainments are stuffed with violent acts. Could this go all the way back to the Bible?

My friend Li is an Evangelical Christian and, in keeping with her family values she keeps an eye on what her children view and read. In the summer, she took her 12-year-old daughter to the Hunger Games. “It’s the perfect movie for her,” Li commented. “No swearing and no sex.” No swearing; no sex. Just people stalking and killing each other.

The Motion Picture Association of America agrees with Li’s priorities. So did the writers of the Bible.  Our love-hate-love affair with violence goes way back.

It goes way back, and it also appears to be changing. In his 2011 book, The Better Angels of our Nature, Stephen Pinker lined up information from a wide variety of sources to show that human societies are less violent now than ever in recorded history. Violence dropped precipitously with the agricultural revolution, and then again with the Enlightenment and more recently, with the emergence of universal human rights. In the U.S., recent decades have seen a decline in murder rates and gun ownership. This finding is counterintuitive for several reasons. We have become more sensitized to kinds of violence that once were accepted as normal, like child and wife abuse; modern weapons of war have made killings more dramatic; we forget how brutish our ancestors really were; and thanks to media, modern incidents of violence produce shockwaves of trauma that once were impossible. All of this obscures a long and vast trend line toward—it sounds weird to say it—a kinder, gentler world. A medieval British man was fifty times more likely to die at the hands of another man than is his modern descendant.

We might be even farther along this path were it not for a love affair with fantasy violence that, if anything, appears to be growing.

The Motion Picture Association of America has been rating sex, violence and profanity in movies since 1968, with the goal of limiting how much of each children absorb—or at least giving parents a tool that lets them make the judgment call. In 2006, the Annenberg Public Policy Center reviewed the top grossing movies since the rating system began.  In fact, they reviewed movies all the way back to 1950. They found that explicit sex and violence had both increased over time, but that “ratings creep” affected only violence. Explicit sex is still reserved for “R” rated films; explicit violence is not.

Many parents naively trust that media targeted at young children are developmentally harmless even though brain science suggests otherwise. They similarly tend to assume that a G-Rating means a movie is low on violence. In reality, it may mean simply that the violence is less realistic or designed to trigger laughter rather than fear. A Harvard study published in 2000 reviewed every animated feature film produced between 1933 and 1999, 74 in total. At the time, the findings made headlines because they were startling:

-- Every single film had at least one violent act. The amount of footage devoted to violence ranged from 6 seconds to 24 minutes.

-- Most of the films showed physical fighting as a means of resolving conflict.

-- Characters used weapons including swords and guns and every-day objects.

-- In half of the movies at least one character gave violence a thumbs-up at some point by cheering or laughing.

A follow up  in 2004 showed that G-rated movies, like all others, gradually are becoming more violent.

A 2007 study sampled 77 PG-13 films and tallied 2251 violent actions, with nearly half causing one or more death.  Researchers classified most of the incidents as “happy violence” meaning it was “cool, swift, and painless.” Today, by the age of 11, the typical American kid has seen almost 8000 murders on TV. Why? Because we like it that way. Movies that are rated R for violence make more money than those that are rated R for other reasons. We are attracted to violence and we are inured to violence.  Most Americans—not just my friend Li--find murder to be more acceptable fare for children than sex or swear words.

Our peculiar hierarchy of priorities may be due in part to the influence of Abrahamic religion on Western Civilization and the unique standing accorded to the Bible in American Christianity specifically. The Bible amalgamates the mythology and legal codes of a specific kind of culture: a clan-based tribal society in which herdsmen struggling for survival in an arid and increasingly denuded environment. Males competed to control females and territory while maintaining the purity of bloodlines and inheritance; gods that were modeled on warlords competed for fealty. Consequently, while codes governing sexuality and blasphemy were strict, codes governing violence were complicated.

Yahweh himself originated as a war god. Non-Hebrews were regarded with hostility and indeed, much of the founding story of the Israelite people comprises tales of triumphal genocide. The violence in in the Bible is so extreme that it defines vast portions of the book:

[Edmund Leach] looked at the Bible through the eyes of a communications engineer and asked: what message are these authors trying to get through to the reader? The answer, Leach thought, was that they were trying to obscure the fact that mankind began through incest (Adam and Eve) and so the strategy was to compile a list of atrocities so heinous that, in the end, the original incest would come to look like a harmless act.

Whether history or mythology or some fusion of the two, the Bible stories, when tallied, include an estimated 25 million violent deaths. And yet, like any people, the internal narrative of God’s Chosen Ones is one of yearning for peace and prosperity, the dream of an idyllic past in which the lion lay down with the lamb; an idyllic future in which men will beat their swords into plowshares and the lamb and lion will lie down together again.

Like the ancient Israelites, we Americans see ourselves as peacemakers. During the midwinter holiday season, Peace on Earth is sung from choir lofts and hung in shopping malls. We complain about our role as “policeman to the world.”  And yet, if we could see ourselves as others see us, we would see a people who, like the ancient Israelites have created unparalleled archetypes of violence: the Rambo, the mushroom cloud, the Tommy Gun, the Cowboy. Hollywood ensures that, even independent of the world’s best funded military, violence is one of our top exports.

I once rode a bus to a then small town in Mexico called San Cristobal de las Casas. The ride was my introduction to a new phenomenon that would become a bane during subsequent budget travel: video on buses and trains. It was also my first awakening to the level of violence we Americans export to the world as storytellers. Real dialogue can be hard to translate; psychological or social nuance almost impossible. But sex and violence are universals, which means they are even more ubiquitous in the movies that cross cultural and economic lines than those that don’t.

On this particular bus ride, the gratis entertainment was about a serial killer who was making snuff films. As we swayed around mountain switchbacks, the sound blared. Men, traditionally clad women, and small children pressed against each other, with no option but to face the screen depicting death scene after death scene. My savage hope was that the other passengers were motion sick like me and that the pairing of the film and switchbacks was conditioning a permanent visceral aversion to sexual violence.  Later that year, on an all-night bus, I would find myself assaulted by my first movie about people hunting people. The male lead was a hunky white supremacist, a farmer by day who secretly liked to hunt Blacks.

In movies, of course, it is the bad guys who do the unprovoked killing. Any violence perpetrated by the protagonist, meaning by us at a fantasy level, is vengeance or justice. Most people are deeply ambivalent about violence. We are both attracted and repelled by it. We enjoy and fear it. It turns us on and it horrifies us. Consequently, to get the satisfaction of a good blockbuster we need those bad guys to instigate things. The violence we like best is righteous violence, and—in movies and stories--most violence is just that. It protects innocence and restores justice. It safeguards women and children and the homeland.

Ironically, those who most relish the fantasy power of righteous violence are those who in real life are most likely to perpetrate unrighteous violence. Masculinity, the substance of action films, is defined by the Oxford Online Dictionary thus: possession of the qualities traditionally associated with men: a need for men to prove their masculinity through domination over women. Hypermasculine men hit women more, and a woman being pregnant is no deterrent. In the real world, tough guys are good guys until suddenly, sometimes, they are not. In the real world, most murders are triggered by the same motives we find so satisfying on the screen: righteous anger, a sense of violated fairness or honor, the outrage of feeling wronged, the conviction that the one murdered was the bad guy.

Most of us will never kill. These days, most of us don’t even hit. Even so, if we hope to continue the trend toward less violence, the challenge is not whether we can call up the heroism to face down villains and demons like those in our stories but whether we can continue to face away from our own dark fascinations. Alexander Solzhenitsyn posed the painful conundrum: “If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

Who of us is willing even, to miss the next blockbuster? In The Hunger Games, the bad people are the citizens of the Capitol who demand that outlying districts provide sacrificial contestants for their high tech version of the Roman Coliseum. Movie viewers and readers root for the kids and scorn those who give them no choice but to kill or be killed, those who watch the blood sport for entertainment. But the books and movie work only because we, as readers and viewers, ignore the disturbing obvious: we arethe Capitol. The Hunger Games were staged for us; we are and always were the only intended audience.  Suzanne Collins offered us a chance to watch kids hunting and killing each other, and we ate it up. Did she laugh we flocked to the book stores and theater, as we downloaded DVD’s and shared dog-eared copies and checked sequel release dates? Did she cry? Did she care? Do we?

Valerie Tarico is a psychologist and writer in Seattle, Washington and the founder of Wisdom Commons. She is the author of "Trusting Doubt: A Former Evangelical Looks at Old Beliefs in a New Light" and "Deas and Other Imaginings." Her articles can be found at Awaypoint.Wordpress.com.

Why music moves us

© Russ Toro, LiveScience Contributor
People use the same types of features
to capture emotion in both movement and
music across cultures, a new study finds

From Sott.net - Dec 17: 2012

By Tia Ghose | LiveScience

Universal emotions like anger, sadness and happiness are expressed nearly the same in both music and movement across cultures, according to new research.

The researchers found that when Dartmouth undergraduates and members of a remote Cambodian hill tribe were asked to use sliding bars to adjust traits such as the speed, pitch, or regularity of music, they used the same types of characteristics to express primal emotions. What's more, the same types of patterns were used to express the same emotions in animations of movement in both cultures.

"The kinds of dynamics you find in movement, you find also in music and they're used in the same way to provide the same kind of meaning," said study co-author Thalia Wheatley, a neuroscientist at Dartmouth University.

The findings suggest music's intense power may lie in the fact it is processed by ancient brain circuitry used to read emotion in our movement.

"The study suggests why music is so fundamental and engaging for us," said Jonathan Schooler, a professor of brain and psychological sciences at the University of California at Santa Barbara, who was not involved in the study. "It takes advantage of some very, very basic and, in some sense, primitive systems that understand how motion relates to emotion."

Universal emotions

Why people love music has been an enduring mystery. Scientists have found that animals like different music than humans and that brain regions stimulated by food, sex and love also light up when we listen to music. Musicians even read emotions better than nonmusicians.

Past studies showed that the same brain areas were activated when people read emotion in both music and movement. That made Wheatley wonder how the two were connected.

To find out, Wheatley and her colleagues asked 50 Dartmouth undergraduates to manipulate five slider bars to change characteristics of an animated bouncy ball to make it look happy, sad, angry, peaceful or scared.

"We just say 'Make Mr. Ball look angry or make Mr. Ball look happy,'" she told LiveScience.

To create different emotions in "Mr. Ball," the students could use the slider bars to affect how often the ball bounced, how often it made big bounces, whether it went up or down more often and how smoothly it moved.

Another 50 students could use similar slider bars to adjust the pitch trajectory, tempo, consonance (repetition), musical jumps and jitteriness of music to capture those same emotions.

The students tended to put the slider bars in roughly the same positions whether they were creating angry music or angry moving balls.

To see if these trends held across cultures, Wheatley's team traveled to the remote highlands of Cambodia and asked about 85 members of the Kreung tribe to perform the same task. Kreung music sounds radically different from Western music, with gongs and an instrument called a mem that sounds a bit like an insect buzzing, Wheatley said. None of the tribes' people had any exposure to Western music or media, she added.

Interestingly, the Kreung tended to put the slider bars in roughly the same positions as Americans did to capture different emotions, and the position of the sliders was very similar for both music and emotions.

The findings suggest that music taps into the brain networks and regions that we use to understand emotion in people's movements. That may explain why music has such power to move us - it's activating deep-seated brain regions that are used to process emotion, Wheatley said.

"Emotion is the same thing no matter whether it's coming in through our eyes or ears," she said.

The study is detailed today (Dec. 17) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The Religious and Social Crisis in America. Political Consequences

From Global Research - Dec 20: 2012

By Prof. James Petras

Introduction

The opening long decade of the 21^st century (2000-2012) has been a period of repeated and profound economic and social crises, of serial and prolonged wars and declining living standards for the vast majority of Americans.  How have people responded to this crisis?  No large scale, long term, socio-political movements have emerged to challenge the bi-partisan dominent classes.  For a brief moment the “ Occupy Wall Street ” movement provided a platform to denounce the 1% super-rich but then faded into memory.

Questions arose whether in the midst of prolonged hardship people would turn to religion for solace, escape into spiritual pietism.  The question this essay addresses is whether religion has become the ‘opium of the people’ as Karl Marx suggested or whether  religious beliefs and institutions are themselves in crisis, losing their spiritual attraction in the face of their inability to resolve the everyday material needs of a growing army of impoverished, low paid, unemployed and contingent workers and a downwardly mobile middle class.  In other words are major religions growing and prospering in our time of permanent economic crise and perpetual wars or are they on the downslope part and parcel of the decline of the US Empire?

According to the latest data as of 2008 the biggest religious group is Christianity with 173.402 million members representing 76% of adult population followed by Judaism with 2.680 million representing 1.2% of the adult population; followed by Eastern religions 1.961 million and representing .9% Muslims 1.349 million representing .6% of adults.  The second most populous group after the Christians are those adults who state they have ‘no religion’ 34.169 million or 15%.

Adult Population and Religious Affiliation 1990-2008 (in millions and percentages)
	1990 Adults	2008 Adults	Numerical Change	1990 % of Adults	2008 % of Adults	Change in % of Total Adults 1990-2008
Adult Population	175,440	228,182	30.1%
(All) Christian	151,225	173,402	14.7%	86.2%	76%	-10.2%
(All) Jewish	3,137	2,680	-14.6%	1.8%	1.2%	-.6%
(All) Eastern	687	1,961	185.4%	.4%	.9%	.5%
(All) Muslim	527	1,349	156%	.3%	.6%	.3%
No Religion	14,331	34,169	138.l4%	8.2%	15%	6.8%

The dynamic trends  over time show a declining percentage of adults who are Christians: between 1990-2008 they dropped from 86.2% to 76%; Jews have declined from 1.8% of adult population in 1990 to 1.2% in 2008 and Eastern religion is growing from .4% of adult population to .97% of population.  Likewise, the percentage of Muslims in the adult population has grown from .3% in 1990 to .6% in 2008.  The percentage of non-religious adult population has increased from 8.2% in 1990 to 15% in 2008.

While both practioners of Christianity and Judaism, as a percentage of the adult population, have declined, there is a sharp divergence in terms of numerical change; between 1990 and 2008 the number of Christians has increased by 2,218 million while the number of Jews has declined by 457 thousand.  Judaism is the only one of the major and minor religions to decline in absolute numbers.

The combined number of Eastern and Muslim religious affiliates now exceeds Judaism by 630,000 believers about 30%.  Jews today represent only 1.2% of the adult US population compared to 1.5% for Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus.  The gap between Christians and non-religious US adults has narrowed over the past 20 years:  from 86.2% to 8.2% in 1990 to 76% to 15% in 2008.  Among Christians the biggest decline is among ‘mainline protestant churches’ (Methodists, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Episcopalian/ Anglican and United Church of Christ) from 32.8 million in 1998 to 29.4 million in 2008; and among “unspecified Protestants” from 17 million to 5.2 million.  The biggest increases are among “non-denominational Christians” rising from 194,000 to 8.03 million believers in 1990-2008, unspecified Christians from 8.1 million to16.4 million and Pentecostals up from 5.7 million in 1990 to 7.9 million in 2008.  Catholic and Baptists grew in numbers but barely held their own as a percentage of the adult population.

Analysis of Religious Trends in Political-Economic Context

Contrary to most observers and pundits, the economic crisis has not led to an upsurge in religious memberships or identification – the search for ‘spiritual consolation’ in a time of economic despair.  The mainline churches and synagogues do not attract or even keep membership because they have little to offer in material solutions to their members in time of need (mortgage foreclosure, bankruptcies, unemployment, losses of savings, pensions or stocks).  Contrary to some pundits even the more otherworldly, apocalyptic, Pentecostal, Charismatic, Born Again Churches while increasing their number have failed to attract a larger percentage of the adult population over the past 20 years; in 1990 they had 3.5% of adults and in 2008 4.4% an increase of .9%.

The crises decade has had several major impacts – it severely weakened religious identity with any specific denomination, it increased religious uncertainty and vastly increased the number and percentage of adult Americans who are no longer religious.  Between 1998 and 2008, the percentage of adults in both categories doubled from 10.5% to 20.2%; the numbers increased from 18.34 million to 46 million.  It would appear that most of the ‘non-religious’ are drawn from former mainline Christians and Jews.

The rise of non-religious adults between 1990-2008 cannot be related to greater education, urbanization and exposure to rationalist thought which has more or less remained the same over the two decades.  What has changed is the rising discontent over declining income among wage and salaried workers, the vast increases in inequality, the perpetual wars and the public discredit of the principle political and economic institutions – Congress is viewed as negatively by 78% of Americans, as are banks, especially Wall Street.  The religious institutions and religious faith is increasingly seen as irrelevant at best and complicit in the decay of American living standards and workplace standards.  Despite the dramatic increase in ‘non-religious’ Americans close to 75% still claim to be believers of one  or another version of Christianity.

The crisis in Judaism is far more severe than even the ‘mainline Christian’ churches.  Over the past 20 years the number of adult Jews has declined by about 15%, over 450,000 former Jews ceased to identify as such.  Some of the political economic causes for the flight from Judaism may be similar to the Christians.   Others may be more specific to Jews:  over 50% of Jews marry outside of the synagogue with non-Jews, cause and consequence of ‘defection’.  Others may convert to other religions – Oriental or Christian.  Some Jewish neo-conservative rabbis and ideologies rant about the threat of ‘assimilation’ being the equivalent of ‘genocide’.  Most likely most former Jews have become ‘non-religious’ or secular and some of the reasons may vary.  For some, Old Testament bloody tales and Talmudic rulings do not resonate with modern rational thought.  Political considerations may also contribute to the sharp decline in self-identifying Jews: the ever tighter links and identity of Israel with Jewish religious institutions, the Israeli flag waiving and unconditional support of Israeli war crimes has repelled many former parishioners, who quietly retire rather than engage in a personally costly spiritual struggle against the formidable pro-Israel apparatus embedded in the inter-locking religious-Zionist networks.

Conclusion

The religious crises, the decline in belief and institutional affiliation, is intimately related to the moral decay in US public institutions and the precipitous decline of living standards.  Among Christians the decline is incremental but steady;among Jews it is deeper and more rapid.  No ‘alternative religious’ revival is in the horizon.  The more fundamentalist Christian groups have responded by becoming more politically involved in extremist movements like the Tea Party demonizing public spending to ameliorate social inequities or have joined Islamophobic pro Israeli movements – precisely as increasing number of ex-Jews depart!

The secular or non-religious adult population has yet to organize and articulate a program in contrast to the fundamentalists, perhaps because they are too disparate a social category – in terms of socio-economic and class interests.  ‘Not religious’ tells us little about what is the alternative.  The shrinking percentage of religious believers can have several outcomes:  in some cases it can lead to a hardening of doctrine and organizational structures ‘to keep the faithful in line’.  In others it has led to increasing politicization, mostly on the extreme right.  Among Christians it means insisting on literal readings of the Bible and anti- evolutionism; among Jews, the shrinking numbers are intensifying tribal loyalties and more aggressive fundraising, lobbying, and  unconditional support for a “Jewish State”, purged of Palestinians, and more punitive witch-hunts against critics of Israel and Zionism.

What needs to be done is a movement that links the growing mass of rational non-religious people with the vast majority of American wage and salaried workers, experiencing declining living standards and the rising costs (material and spiritual) of imperial wars.  Some religious individuals and even denominations will be attracted to such a movement others will attack it for sectarian and political reasons.  But as a non-religious morality links individual and political crises to social action, so can the political community create the bases for a new society built on secular needs and public ethics.

Comment: It may be impossible to define religion precisely, that is to say, life is religion for some and how they define it is up to them, which then reflects both essence and personality which will reveal much. The art of domination is authoritative, especially when it comes to definition for words that were never meant to be graven as a methodology to defend their idolatry.

Myth, Narrative, Manipulation and Mass Murder

From Veterans Today - Dec 19: 2012

By Stewart Ogilby

We should be very skeptical regarding news fed to us by TV. As of the moment, there is no reason to believe any of the Connecticut story. It appears that its ground-work has been in place since around the time of 9/11, including the creation of a heroic teacher personna. The story that the father, like that of the alleged Aurora theater killer, is involved in LIBOR litigation may have been released as a red herring. I am not convinced that the murdered mother existed at all. The alleged father appears likely to be an agent-plant. There are a number of obvious actors involved.

The perpetrators are now totally brazen with this sort of thing. Judging from comments at skeptical online articles people may be waking up quickly, unlike their decade-long coma regarding 9/11. The gunning down of elementary school kids may turn out to be the perpetrators’ big mistake. Arrogance, or hubris, eventually results in fate destroying those who overstep its limit, as Greek tragedy teaches us. The present narrative might get blown apart. It is up to all of us not to fall for disinformation and to keep our heads in seeking and publicizing verifiable discrepancies in news surrounding this latest horrifying event.

What we call modernity has resulted from the exploding number of humans having been led by a relatively small number of aristocrats, who, in self-interest, always become beholden to absolute rulers, monarchs, and czars. Since the French Revolution and a progressive decline in the political power of monarchs, masses are increasing falling under the control of parliaments, such as our own Congress. Manipulation by elites through myth and narrative, has been necessary in order to steer the masses in directions financially profitable to themselves. Advantages to others have not accrued altruistically.

Manipulation is always done through myth and narrative. In the past narrative was supported by religion in appealing to human superstitions, fears, and fantasies. With modern communication technology we call this psy-op and disinformation methodology. What is going on today is simply a continuation of an ages old game. It is highly problematical that the masses can ever be led rationally. The best we can hope for is that a former aristocratic class gets a grip on the nature of the game and, as happened at the signing of Magna Carta, is able to wrest political control from absolute rulers.

Lord Acton was correct in observing that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Today’s elites, who happen to be society’s bankers, are now overwhelmed by their own greed and an increasing fear of losing wealth and power. This has made them paranoid and they are becoming careless. It is up to each of us to expose the nature of their game in attempting to create a future for the human race on our small planet.
It is not necessarily depressing to realize that manipulation through myth and narrative affects us all. When push comes to shove, those with healthy imaginations, superior intellects, and constructive values must engage in this ourselves if we expect to turn the masses away from environmentally fatal and hedonistic destructive pursuits that are financially profitable for today’s cynical elites but that threaten man and mankind’s future.

Breast-Squeezing – and Sex In General – Improves Health

From Washington's Blog - Dec 19: 2012

Our Interests Are Strictly Academic, Of Course … 

We’ve extensively documented that sex helps you live longer, makes you smarter, improves health and prevents depression.

More good news for the lover …

MSN UK notes that squeezing the breasts can help prevent cancer:

A little squeeze may be all that it takes to prevent malignant breast cells triggering cancer, research has shown.

Laboratory experiments showed that applying physical pressure to the cells guided them back to a normal growth pattern.

***

“People have known for centuries that physical force can influence our bodies,” said Gautham Venugopalan, a leading member of the research team at the University of California in Berkeley, United States.

“When we lift weights our muscles get bigger. The force of gravity is essential to keeping our bones strong. Here we show that physical force can play a role in the growth – and reversion – of cancer cells.”

The study involved growing malignant breast epithelial cells within a gel injected into flexible silicone chambers. This allowed the scientists to apply compression during the first stages of cell growth, effectively squashing the cells.

Over time, the squeezed malignant cells began to grow in a more normal and organised way.
Once the breast tissue structure was formed the cells stopped growing, even when the compressive force was removed. Non-compressed cells continued to display the haphazard and uncontrolled growth that leads to cancer.

“Malignant cells have not completely forgotten how to be healthy; they just need the right cues to guide them back to a healthy growth pattern,” said Mr Venugopalan, a doctoral student.
The results were presented at the annual meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology in San Francisco.

MSN Now called it the “best study ever”.

Kymatica - FULL MOVIE

From SENTIENTMIND - Dec 10: 2010



Join me on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Sentientmind

A movie by Ben Stewart, please visit his website:
http://talismanicidols.org/

The questions that have remained timeless and profound throughout history have been all but left for dead. There have been messages left in scripture, archeological remains, shamanic traditions, philosophy, poetry, art and music. As we move closer to an apex of technological and intellectual information, we find ourselves farther and farther away from feeling any comfort or wholeness within our hearts and souls.

Yet even though the concept of spirituality should have been long gone by now, we are seeing an awakening among people and a growing desire for truth.

For the first time in history we are finding that there are no sole saviors or lone prophets to guide us, but a whole race waking from a sleep that has brought this world to the brink of destruction. In a world where Apocalyptic catastrophes seem inevitable, we must look at the solutions in a whole new manner.

As the latest quantum mechanics and metaphysics are just being discovered, we notice that we are not moving forward, but returning to a consciousness that the ancient shamans, mystics and sages have left for us.

It is a new age. An age for responsibility and stewardship. And as we begin to look for answers in the world within, the world without will reflect. In this new age, we will discover that we are all one mind, one organism, and one spirit. We are the savior we have been waiting for.

Recommended by Taoist masters, revered by athletes - Schizandra berry uplifts energy, sharpens the mind and enhances libido

image

From Natural News - Dec 13: 2012

By Carolanne Wright

(NaturalNews) Forget the morning cup of java -- try schizandra instead. This tiny fruit will provide clarity and energy without toxic and unnerving side effects. A powerful berry, schizandra combats everything from aging to nervous exhaustion to poor libido. Treasured by Asian cultures for centuries, schizandra is an outstanding adaptogenic herb that can encourage a spring in your step and a sparkle in your eye.

A small, brilliantly red berry, schizandra is part of the magnolia family. It is native to China, Japan and Korea as well as Russia. Traditionally, it has been used to foster mental acuity and agelessness. Schizandra is also known for its libido enriching properties. A true adaptogen, it is safe, non-toxic and reduces stress while providing stable energy. Taoist masters heartily recommend schizandra to their students due to the belief that it is one of the few herbs that contains all three treasures (the energies of Essence, Vitality and Spirit). They feel anyone working with internal energy could benefit greatly from the berry.

This is not a fruit to munch on like goji or acai, however. Schizandra has five flavor characteristics -- sweet, sour, salty, bitter and pungent. It isn't exactly the type of berry enjoyed for its delicious taste. Used frequently in Chinese soups and occasionally juiced, schizandra is specifically consumed as a medicinal tonic to boost health and vitality.

Improve performance, curtail fatigue and spark libido 

Chinese athletes often use schizandra during training for good reason -- it reduces fatigue while improving physical power. A significant increase in the performance and stamina of gymnasts, long distance runners and competitive athletes was found during human testing of the berry.

Physical strength is not the only benefit of schizandra, the mind is sharpened too. Several studies confirm schizandra enhances concentration and memory, increases accuracy and quality of work while reducing mental fatigue. Doctors, students, soldiers and others have all shown marked mental improvement from schizandra use.

Sexual health is also fortified. Schizandra is said to "help produce abundant sexual fluids, increase sexual endurance and to strengthen the whole body," according to The Journal of Traditional Eastern Health & Fitness. When consumed regularly, it is an exceptional and reliable tonic.

Schizandra is considered a highly protective medicinal plant. It has remarkable antioxidant and anti-inflammatory characteristics, thereby supporting healthy cellular function. Inhibiting the aging process and creating moist, radiant skin is yet another benefit. The liver is protected by this berry as well. In over 500 cases, the liver shielding properties of schizandra were demonstrated in the treatment of hepatitis.

Schizandra is a wonderful fruit that packs a powerful punch. If you are seeking exceptional mental clarity, buoyant energy or a youthful glow, use schizandra for 100 consecutive days. It very well may provide a much needed boost to your life.

Sources for this article include:

"Schizandra is a Berry with Many Health Benefits" Chris Kilham, Fox News Latino, May 11, 2011. Retrieved on November 28, 2012 from: http://latino.foxnews.com

Schizandra Berry, Dr. Mao. Retrieved on November 28, 2012 from: http://www.askdrmao.com/natural-health-dictionary/schizandra-berry/

"Health and Wellness Library: Schizandra. Nutri Herb. Retrieved on November 28, 2012 from: http://www.nutriherb.net/schizandra.html

Schizandra Fruit. The Journal of Traditional and Eastern Health & Fitness. Retrieved on November 28, 2012 from: http://www.qi-journal.com

"The Three Treasures" Elizabeth Reninger. Retrieved on November 28, 2012 from: http://taoism.about.com/od/internalalchemy/a/three_treasures.htm

About the author:

Carolanne enthusiastically believes if we want to see change in the world, we need to be the change. As a nutritionist, natural foods chef and wellness coach, Carolanne has encouraged others to embrace a healthy lifestyle of organic living, gratefulness and joyful orientation for over 13 years. Through her website www.Thrive-Living.net she looks forward to connecting with other like-minded people from around the world who share a similar vision.

Follow on Twitter at: www.twitter.com/Thrive_Living

Read her other articles on Natural News here:

http://www.naturalnews.com/Author1183.html

The 'Holy Grail' of primal health: Benefits of a fat-based caloric intake for body and brain

From Sott.net - Dec 12: 2012



Dietary fat has been the subject of considerable derision, misinformation and disinformation through medical authorities, public policy campaigns, conventional nutritionists and the mainstream media for most of the last century. Conversely, dietary carbohydrates have been lauded as foundational to human dietary needs.

Human physiological makeup and the history of our ancestral diet, however, has not been consistent with these claims. Dietary fat is demonstrably central to our most basic energy, metabolic and physiologic needs and by restricting its intake we foster a much less healthy and unnatural dependence upon carbohydrates, to the considerable detriment of societal physical and mental health.

About the author

Nora Gedgaudas, C.N.S., C.N.T. is the author of the international best selling book, Primal Body, Primal Mind: Beyond the Paleo Diet for Total Health and a Longer Life. She is an international speaker on the subject of paleolithic diets and operates a successful private practice in Portland, OR offering neurofeedback and nutritional therapy/consultation services.

The Sociopath Next Door (Introduction)

From StarveTheSystem - Aug 21: 2011

Universal Interdependence - "Your god is your ultimate barrier.": Quotes from Joseph Campbell

From IXSASifuJeff - Mar 9: 2010

The "Social Contract" is Invalid

From StormCloudsGathering - Dec 6: 2012