The Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life says that there is a phenomenological difference between the pain that you experience when you take someone else’s pain upon yourself and the pain that comes directly from your own pain and suffering. In the former, there is an element of discomfort because you are sharing the other’s pain. However, as Shantideva points out, there is also a certain amount of stability because, in a sense, you are voluntarily accepting that pain.

In the voluntary participation in other’s suffering there is strength and a sense of confidence. But in the latter case, when you are undergoing your own pain and suffering, there is an element of involuntariness, and because of the lack of control on your part, you feel weak and completely overwhelmed. In the Buddhist teachings on altruism and compassion, certain expressions are used such that one should disregard one’s own well being and cherish other’s well being.

It is important to understand these statements regarding the practice of voluntarily sharing someone else’s pain and suffering in the proper context. The fundamental point is that if you do not have the capacity to love yourself, then there is simply no basis on which to build a sense of caring toward others. The capacity to love oneself or be kind to oneself should be based on a very fundamental fact of human existence, that we all have a natural tendency to desire happiness and avoid suffering.

Once this basis exists in relation to oneself, one can extend it to others. When we find statements in the teachings suggesting to regard one’s own well being and cherish the well being of others, we should understand them in the context of training yourself according to the ideal of compassion. This is important if we are not to indulge in self-centered ways of thinking that disregard the impact of our actions on other sentient beings.

We can develop an attitude of considering others as precious in the recognition of the part their kindness plays in our own experience of joy, happiness, and success. Through analysis and contemplation one will come to see that much of our misery, suffering, and pain really result from a self centered attitude that cherishes one’s own well being at the expense of others, whereas much of the joy, happiness, and sense of security in our lives arise from thoughts and emotions that cherish the well being of others.

Another fact concerning the cultivation of thoughts and emotions that cherish the well being of others is that one’s own self interest and wishes are fulfilled as a byproduct of actually working for others. As Je Tsong Khapa points out in his Great Exposition of the Path to Enlightenment, the more the practitioner engages in activities and thoughts that are focused and directed toward the fulfillment of others’ well-being, the fulfillment or realization of his or her own aspiration will come as a byproduct without having to make a separate effort.

At some point the question comes up of whether we really change our attitude. Sometimes the mind is very stubborn and very difficult to change, but with continuous effort and with conviction based on reason our minds can become quite honest. When we really feel that there is some need to change, then our minds can change. Wishing and praying alone will not transform the mind, but with conviction and reason, the mind can be transformed.

Time is an important factor here, and with time our mental attitudes can certainly change. One point that should be noted is that some people, especially those who see themselves as very realistic and practical, are too obsessed with practicality. They may wonder what the point is in trying to cultivate a mind that tries to include every living being. In a way, that may be a valid objection, but what is important is to understand the impact of cultivating such a state of awareness.

The point is to try to develop the scope of one’s empathy in such a way that it can extend to any form of life that has the capacity to feel pain and experience happiness. This kind of sentiment is very powerful, and there is no need to be able to identify with every single living being in order for it to be effective.

True compassion and love in the context of training of the mind is based on the simple recognition that everyone aspires to be happy and to overcome suffering, and that others have the natural right to fulfill that basic aspiration. The empathy developed toward a person based on recognition of this basic fact is universal compassion. This compassion is able to be extended to all sentient beings, as long as they are capable of experiencing pain and happiness.

Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events which are unrelated occurring together in a meaningful manner.

If for example an American and a British musician having never had anything to do with one another arrived at the same musical concept, chord sequence, feel or lyrics at the same time in different places, this is an example of synchronicity. During the production of The Wizard of Oz a coat bought from a second hand store for the costume of Professor Marvel was later found to have belonged to L. Frank Baum, author of the children’s book upon which the film is based.

The French writer Emile Deschamps claims in his memoirs that in 1805 he was treated to some plum pudding by a stranger named Monsieur de Fontgibu. Ten years later, the writer encountered plum pudding on the menu of a Paris restaurant and wanted to order some, but the waiter told him the last dish had already been served to another customer, who turned out to be de Fortgibu. Many years later in 1832, Deschamps was at a diner, and was once again offered plum pudding. He recalled the earlier incident and told his friends that only de Fortgibu was missing to make the setting complete and in the same instant, the now senile de Fontgibu entered the room.

Writer and iconoclast Charles Hoy Fort wrote several books on synchronicity including the Book of the Damned, Lo!, New Lands and Wild Talents. New Lands tells the famous story of the woman who lost her ring in a nearby lake only to recover it years later inside a fish she bought at a local market. He also wrote about the Butterfly Effect years before Lorenz, the famous mathematician coined the term.

The Dirk Gently series of books by Douglas Adams often plays on the synchronicity concept. The main character carries a pocket I Ching that also functions as a calculator, up to a point. In Philip K. Dick’s The Game Players of Titan, several characters possessing precognitive abilities cite the acausal principle of synchronicity as an element which hampers their ability to accurately predict certain possible futures.

John Constantine, the main character in the Vertigo Comics series Hellblazer, is sometimes seen riding the synchronicity highway, to meet certain goals or even just to one up those around him. In the D20 Modern roleplaying game Urban Arcana, Synchronicity is a magic spell that subtly rearranges reality, allowing the subject to avoid the minor inconveniences and hassles of everyday life.

Terence McKenna used the term ‘cosmic giggle’ to mean “a randomly roving zone of synchronicity and statistical anomaly. Should you be caught up in it, it will turn reality on its head. It is objective and subjective, simultaneously ‘really there’ and yet somehow is sustained by imagination and expectation.” The phenomenon is also explored, though not named, in The Red Notebook by Paul Auster, and is considered a major theme of his entire bibliography, appearing in some form in almost every work.

The idea of synchronicity is that the conceptual relationship of minds, defined as the relationship between ideas, is intricately structured in its own logical way and gives rise to relationships which are not causal in nature. Instead, causal relationships are understood as simultaneous such that the cause and effect occur at the same time.

Synchronous events reveal an underlying pattern or conceptual framework which encompasses, but is larger than, any of the systems which display the synchronicity. The suggestion of a larger framework is essential in order to satisfy the definition of synchronicity as originally developed by Swiss psychologist Carl Gustav Jung.

Jung coined the word to describe what he called temporally coincident occurrences of acausal events. Jung variously described synchronicity as an connecting principle, meaningful coincidence and acausal parallelism. Jung introduced the concept as early as the 1920s then in 1952 published a paper in a volume with a related study by the physicist Wolfgang Pauli.

It was a principle that Jung felt gave conclusive evidence for his concepts of archetypes and the collective unconscious. Synchronicity is descriptive of a governing dynamic that underlay the whole of human experience and history, social, emotional, psychological, and spiritual. Events that happen which appear at first to be coincidence, but are later found to be causally related are termed as incoincident.

Jung believed that many experiences that are coincidences due to chance in terms of causality, suggested the manifestation of parallel events or circumstances in terms of meaning, reflecting this governing dynamic.

In psychology and cognitive science, confirmation bias is the tendency to search for or interpret new information in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions and avoids information and interpretations which contradict prior beliefs. Many critics believe that any evidence for synchronicity is due to confirmation bias, and nothing else.

Wolfgang Pauli, a scientist who in his professional life was severely critical of confirmation bias, lent his scientific credibility to support the theory, coauthoring a paper with Jung on the subject. Some of the evidence that Pauli cited was that ideas which occurred in his dreams would have synchronous analogs in later correspondence with distant collaborators.

The Maya developed a sophisticated calendar system. It is a system of distinct calendars and almanacs that can be synchronized and interlocked in many ways, their combinations giving rise to extensive cycles and recurrences.

The most important of these calendars is one with a period of 260 days. This 260 day calendar was prevalent across all societies. It is commonly known to scholars as the Tzolkin. The Tzolkin calendar combines twenty day names with thirteen numbers to produce 260 unique days. It is used to determine the time of religious and ceremonial events and for divination. Each successive day is numbered from 1 to 13. Separately from this, each day is given a name in sequence from a list of 20 day names.

The exact origin of the Tzolkin is not known, but there are several theories. One theory is that the calendar came from mathematical operations based on the numbers thirteen and twenty, which were important numbers to the Maya. The numbers multiplied together equal 260. Another theory is that the 260 day period came from the length of human pregnancy. 

The Tzolkin is combined with another 365 day calendar known as the Haab to form a synchronized cycle lasting for 52 Haabs. The Haab was the Maya solar calendar made up of eighteen months of twenty days each plus a period of five days at the end of the year known as Wayeb.

As a calendar for keeping track of the seasons, the Haab was crude and inaccurate since it treated the year as having 365 days and ignored the extra quarter day in the actual year. Some argue that the Maya knew about and compensated for the quarter day error even though their calendar did not include anything comparable to a leap year, a method first implemented by the Romans.

The five nameless days at the end of the calendar called Wayeb were thought to be a dangerous time. During Wayeb portals between the mortal realm and the underworld dissolved. This lack of boundaries allowed the ill intending deities to cause disasters. To ward off these evil spirits, the Maya had customs and rituals they practiced during Wayeb. For example, people avoided leaving their houses or washing or combing their hair.

Because the two calendars were based on 260 days and 365 days respectively, the whole cycle would repeat itself every 52 Haab years exactly. This period was known as a Calendar Round. The end of the Calendar Round was a period of unrest and bad luck among the Maya, as they waited in expectation to see if the gods would grant them another cycle of 52 years.

Many Maya calendar inscriptions are supplemented by what is known as the Lunar Series, another calendar form which provides information on the lunar phase and position of the Moon in a half yearly cycle of lunations.

A 584 day Venus cycle was also maintained, which tracked the appearance and conjunctions of Venus as the morning and evening stars. Many events in this cycle were seen as being inauspicious and baleful, and occasionally warfare was timed to coincide with stages in this cycle.

Other less prevalent or poorly understood cycles and calendar progressions were also tracked. An 819 day count is attested in a few inscriptions, and repeating sets of 9 and 13 day intervals associated with different groups of deities, animals and other significant concepts are also known.

The repetition of the various calendric cycles, the natural cycles of observable phenomena, and the recurrence and renewal of death and rebirth imagery in their mythological traditions were important and pervasive influences upon Maya societies. This conceptual view in which the cyclical nature of time is highlighted was a preeminent one, and many rituals were concerned with the completion and reoccurrences of various cycles.

As each particular calendaric configuration was once again repeated, so too were the supernatural influences with which they were associated. Thus it was held that particular calendar configurations had a specific character to them, which would influence events on days exhibiting that configuration. Divinations could then be made from the predictions associated with a certain configuration, since events taking place on some future date would be subject to the same influences as its corresponding previous cycle dates. Events and ceremonies would be timed to coincide with auspicious dates, and avoid inauspicious ones.

The completion of significant calendar cycles were often marked by the erection and dedication of specific monuments such as the twin pyramid complexes in Tikal and Yaxha. Ceremonies commemorating the completion of cycles accompanied the dedication and resulting functions of these structures.

A cyclical interpretation is also noted in Maya creation accounts, in which the present world and the humans in it were preceded by other worlds which were fashioned in various forms by the gods but then destroyed. The present world also had a tenuous existence, requiring the supplication and offerings of periodic sacrifice to maintain the balance of continuing existence. Similar themes are found in the creation accounts of other Mesoamerican societies.

Since calendar dates can only distinguish in 18,980 days the cycle repeats roughly once each lifetime, and a more refined method of dating was needed if history was to be recorded accurately. To measure dates over periods longer than 52 years, Mesoamericans devised the Long Count calendar.

The Mesoamerican Long Count calendar forms the basis for a New Age belief, first forecast by Jose Arguelles, that a cataclysm will take place on or about December 21, 2012, a forecast that mainstream Mayanist scholars consider a misinterpretation.

Ants are social insects that evolved from ancestors in the Cretaceous period between 110 and 130 million years ago and diversified after the rise of flowering plants. Today, more than 12,000 species are classified with upper estimates of about 14,000 species.

Ants form colonies that range in size from a few tens of predatory individuals living in small natural cavities to highly organized colonies which may occupy large territories and consist of millions of individuals that are mostly sterile females forming castes of workers, soldiers, or other specialised groups. The colonies are sometimes described as superorganisms because ants appear to operate as a unified entity, collectively working together to support the colony.

Ant societies have division of labour, communication between individuals, and an ability to solve complex problems. These parallels with human societies have long been an inspiration and subject of study. Many human cultures make use of ants in cuisine, medication, and rituals. Some species are valued in their role as biological pest control agents. However, their ability to exploit resources brings ants into conflict with humans as they can damage crops and invade buildings. Some species, such as the red fire ant, are regarded as invasive species, since they can spread rapidly into new areas.

Ants communicate with each other using pheromones. These chemical signals are more developed in ants than in other insect groups. They perceive smells with their long, thin and mobile antennae. The paired antennae provide information about the direction and intensity of scents. Since most ants live on the ground, they use the soil surface to leave pheromone trails that can be followed by other ants.

In species that forage in groups, a forager that finds food marks a trail on the way back to the colony. This trail is followed by other ants, and these ants then reinforce the trail when they head back with food to the colony. When the food source is exhausted, no new trails are marked by returning ants and the scent slowly dissipates. This behaviour helps ants deal with changes in their environment. For instance, when an established path to a food source is blocked by an obstacle, the foragers leave the path to explore new routes. If an ant is successful, it leaves a new trail marking the shortest route on its return. Successful trails are followed by more ants, reinforcing better routes and gradually finding the best path. But ants use pheromones for more than just making trails. A crushed ant emits an alarm pheromone that sends nearby ants into an attack frenzy and attracts more ants from further away. Several ant species even use propaganda pheromones to confuse enemy ants and make them fight among themselves.

Pheromones are also exchanged mixed with food and passed among members of the community, transferring information within the colony. This allows other ants to detect what task group other colony members belong to. In ant species with queen castes, workers begin to raise new queens in the colony when the dominant queen stops producing a specific pheromone.

Many animals can learn behaviours by imitation but ants may be the only group apart from mammals where interactive teaching has been observed. One species of ant leads a nest mate to newly discovered food by the excruciatingly slow process of tandem running. The follower obtains knowledge through its leading tutor. Both leader and follower are acutely sensitive to the progress of their partner with the leader slowing down when the follower lags, and speeding up when the follower gets too close. Controlled experiments with some colonies suggest that individuals may choose nest roles based on their previous experience.

An entire generation of identical workers was divided into two groups whose outcome in food foraging was controlled. One group was continually rewarded with prey, while it was made certain that the other failed. As a result, members of the successful group intensified their foraging attempts while the unsuccessful group ventured out less and less. A month later, the successful foragers continued in their role while the others moved to specialise in brood care.

Ants perform many ecological roles that are beneficial to humans, including the suppression of pest populations and aeration of the soil. The use of weaver ants in citrus cultivation in southern China is considered one of the oldest known applications of biological control. On the other hand, ants can become nuisances when they invade buildings or cause economic losses.

In some parts of the world, large ants are used as surgical sutures. The wound is pressed together and ants are applied along it. The ant seizes the edges of the wound in its mandibles and locks in place. The body is then cut off and the head and mandibles remain in place to close the wound. Some ants have toxic venom and are of medical importance.

In South Africa, ants are used to help harvest rooibos, which are small seeds used to make an herbal tea. The plant disperses its seeds widely, making manual collection difficult. Black ants collect and store these and other seeds in their nest, where humans can gather them. Up to half a pound of seeds can be collected from one ant mound.  

William Walker Atkinson was a very important and influential American figure in the early days of the New Thought Movement. He was an attorney, merchant, publisher, and author, as well as an occultist and an American pioneer of New Thought. He is also known to have been the author of the pseudonymous works attributed to Theron Q. Dumont and Yogi Ramacharaka. Atkinson’s 1906 book Thought Vibration or the Law of Attraction in the Thought World is associated with the thinking behind the recent phenomena surrounding the 2007 movie and book, The Secret by Rhonda Byrne.

Due in part to Atkinson’s intense personal secrecy and extensive use of pseudonyms he is now largely forgotten, despite having obtained mention in past editions of Who’s Who in America, Religious Leaders of America, and several similar publications and for having written more than 100 books in the last 30 years of his life.

Atkinson pursued a business career from 1882 onwards. While he gained much material success in his profession as a lawyer, the stress and overstrain eventually took its toll and during this time he experienced a complete physical and mental breakdown, and financial disaster. He looked for healing and in the late 1880s he found it with New Thought. From mental and physical wreck and financial ruin, he attained perfect health, mental vigor and material prosperity, which he attributed to the application of the principles of New Thought.

By the early 1890s Chicago had become a major centre for New Thought, mainly through the work of Emma Curtis Hopkins, and Atkinson decided to move there. Once in the city, he became an active promoter of the movement as an editor and author. In 1900 Atkinson worked as an associate editor of Suggestion, a New Thought Journal, and wrote his probable first book, Thought Force in Business and Everyday Life, a series of lessons in personal magnetism, psychic influence, thought force, concentration, will-power, and practical mental science.

Throughout his subsequent career, Atkinson wrote and published under his own name and many pseudonyms. It is not known whether he ever acknowledged authorship of these pseudonymous works, but all of the supposedly independent authors whose writings are now credited to Atkinson were linked to one another by virtue of the fact that their works were released by a series of publishing houses with shared addresses and they also wrote for a series of magazines with a shared roster of authors. Atkinson was the editor of all of those magazines and his pseudonymous authors acted first as contributors to the periodicals, and were then spun off into their own book writing careers, with most of their books being released by Atkinson’s own publishing houses.

One key to unravelling this tangled web of pseudonyms is found in Advanced Thought magazine, billed as A Journal of The New Thought, Practical Psychology, Yogi Philosophy, Constructive Occultism, Metaphysical Healing, Etc. This magazine, edited by Atkinson, advertised articles by Atkinson, Yogi Ramacharaka, and Theron Q. Dumont, the latter two being pseudonyms of Atkinson, and it had the same address as The Yogi Publishing Society, which published the works attributed to Yogi Ramacharaka.

Advanced Thought magazine also carried articles by Swami Bhakta Vishita, but when it came time for Vishita’s writings to be collected in book form, they were not published by the Yogi Publishing Society. Instead they were published by The Advanced Thought Publishing Co., the same house that brought out the Theron Q. Dumont books and published Advanced Thought magazine.

In the 1890s, Atkinson had become interested in Hinduism and after 1900 he devoted a great deal of effort to the diffusion of yoga and Oriental occultism in the West. It is unclear at this late date whether he actually ever converted to any form of Hindu religion, or merely wished to write on the subject. If he did convert, he left no record of the event.

According to unverifiable sources, while Atkinson was in Chicago at the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893, he met one Baba Bharata, a pupil of the late Indian mystic Yogi Ramacharaka. As the story goes, Bharata had become acquainted with Atkinson’s writings after arriving in America, the two men shared similar ideas, and so they decided to collaborate. While editing New Thought magazine, it is claimed, Atkinson co-wrote with Bharata a series of books which they attributed to Bharata’s teacher, Yogi Ramacharaka. This story cannot be verified and, like the biography that falsely claimed Atkinson was an English author, it may be a fabrication.

No record exists in India of a Yogi Ramacharaka, nor is there evidence in America of the immigration of a Baba Bharata. Furthermore, although Atkinson may have travelled to Chicago to visit the Columbian Exposition, where the authentic Indian yogi Swami Vivekananda attracted enthusiastic audiences, he is only known to have taken up residence in Chicago around 1900.

Atkinson’s claim to have an Indian coauthor was actually not unusual among the New Thought and New Age writers of his era. Atkinson was not alone in embracing a vaguely exotic orientalism as a running theme in his writing, nor in crediting Hindus, Buddhists, or Sikhs with the possession of special knowledge and secret techniques of clairvoyance, spiritual development, sexual energy, health, or longevity.

The way had been paved in the mid to late 19th century by Paschal Beverly Randolph, who wrote in his books Eulis and Seership that he had been taught the mysteries of mirror scrying by the deposed Indian Maharajah Dalip Singh. Randolph was known for embroidering the truth when it came to his own autobiography, but he was actually telling the truth, or something very close to it, according to his biographer John Patrick Deveney, when he said that he had met the Maharajah in Europe and had learned from him the proper way to use both polished gemstones and Indian bhattah mirrors in divination.

After Randolph’s death in 1875, the floodgates opened, and from the 1890s until well into the 1950s, the West was inundated by a tide of all seeing, all knowing, all telling swamis, yogis, fakirs, and mahatmas. Some of these representatives from the East, like Paramahansa Yogananda, were genuine teachers who represented known lineages of Indian and Asian spiritual and philosophical tradition. Others, such as the so called blind albino seeress from Ceylon, Millie Lammar, and Claude Alexander, The Crystal Seer, were vaudeville and stage mentalists who dressed in oriental garments.

In any case, with or without a coauthor, Atkinson started writing a series of books under the name Yogi Ramacharaka, ultimately releasing more than a dozen titles under this pseudonym. The Ramacharaka books were published by the Yogi Publication Society in Chicago and reached more people than Atkinson’s New Thought works did. In fact, all of his books on yoga are still in print today.

Atkinson apparently enjoyed the idea of writing as a Hindu so much that he created two more Indian personas, Swami Bhakta Vishita and Swami Panchadasi. Strangely, neither of these identities wrote on Hinduism. Their material was for the most part concerned with the arts of divination and mediumship, including oriental forms of clairvoyance and seership. Of the two, Swami Bhakta Vishita was by far the more popular, and with more than 30 titles to his credit, he eventually outsold even Yogi Ramacharaka.

The high point of his prodigious capacity for production was reached in the late 1910s. In addition to writing and publishing a steady stream of books and pamphlets, Atkinson started writing articles for Elizabeth Towne’s New Thought magazine Nautilus, while simultaneously editing his own journal Advanced Thought. During this same period he also found time to assume the role of the honorary president of the International New Thought Alliance.

Atkinson died November 22, 1932 in Los Angeles, California at the age of 69, after 50 years of simultaneously successful careers in business, writing, occultism, and the law. Many mysteries still surround Atkinson’s life, including the fact that a certificate of copyright issued three years after his death is said to have been signed by the author himself.

EVP, or Electronic Voice Phenomena, are sections of static noise on the radio or electronic recording which some listeners believe sound like voices speaking words, and which paranormal investigators interpret as the voices of ghosts or spirits. Recording EVP has become a technique of those who attempt to contact the souls of dead loved ones or during ghost hunting activities. In addition to deceased spirits, various paranormal investigators say that EVP could be produced by psychic echoes from the past, psychokinesis unconsciously produced by living people, and aliens. According to parapsychologist Konstantin Raudive, who popularized the idea, EVP are typically brief, usually the length of a word or short phrase.

Those who believe in the existence of EVP as a paranormal manifestation have a number of beliefs as to what EVP may possibly be. Common explanations include living humans imprinting thoughts directly on an electronic medium through psychokinesis and communication by discarnate entities such as spirits, nature energies, beings from other dimensions, or extraterrestrials.

As the Spiritualism religious movement became prominent in the 1840s–1920s with a distinguishing belief that the spirits of the dead can be contacted by mediums, new technologies of the era including photography were employed by spiritualists in an effort to demonstrate contact with a spirit worl. So popular were such ideas that Thomas Edison was asked in an interview with Scientific American to comment on the possibility of using his inventions to communicate with spirits. He replied that if the spirits were only capable of subtle influences, a sensitive recording device would provide a better chance of spirit communication than the table tipping and ouija boards mediums employed at the time. However, there is no indication that Edison ever designed or constructed a device for such a purpose. As sound recording became widespread, mediums explored using this technology to demonstrate communication with the dead as well. Despite the eventual decline of Spiritualism through the latter part of the 20th century, attempts to use portable recording devices and modern digital technologies to demonstrate life after death continued to be promoted in popular culture and by a cadre of dedicated believers.

In 1980, William O’Neil constructed an electronic audio device called The Spiricom. O’Neil claimed the device was built to specifications which he received psychically from George Mueller, a scientist who had died six years previously. At a Washington, DC, press conference on April 6, 1982, O’Neil stated that he was able to hold two-way conversations with spirits through the Spiricom device, and provided the design specifications to researchers for free. However, nobody is known to have replicated O’Neil’s results using their own Spiricom devices. O’Neil’s partner, retired industrialist George Meek, attributed O’Neil’s success, and the inability of others to replicate it, to O’Neil’s psychic abilities forming part of the loop that made the system work.

Since EVP has been ignored and derided as fiction by the scientific community and is not generally studied by academic researchers, there is no singular consensus on what all EVP are. However, there are a number of straightforward scientific explanations that can account for why some listeners to the static on audio devices may believe they hear voices, including radio interference and the tendency of the human brain to recognize patterns in random stimuli. A percentage of recordings may be hoaxes created by frauds or pranksters.

The very first EVP recordings may have originated from the use of tape recording equipment with poorly aligned erasure and recording heads, resulting in previous audio recordings not being completely erased. This could allow a small percentage of previous content to be superimposed or mixed into a new silent recording.

Interference, for example, is seen in certain EVP recordings, especially those recorded on devices which contain RLC circuitry. These cases represent radio signals of voices or other sounds from broadcast sources. Interference from CB Radio transmissions and wireless baby monitors, or anomalies generated though cross modulation from other electronic devices, are all documented phenomena. It is even possible for circuits to resonate without any internal power source by means of radio reception.

Capture errors are anomalies created by the method used to capture audio signals, such as noise generated through the over amplification of a signal at the point of recording.

Artifacts created during attempts to boost the clarity of an existing recording might explain some EVP. Methods include resampling, frequency isolation, and noise reduction or enhancement, which can cause recordings to take on qualities significantly different from those that were present in the original recording.

Portable digital voice recorders are currently the technology of choice for EVP investigators. Since these devices are very susceptible to Radio Frequency (RF) contamination, EVP enthusiasts sometimes try to record EVP in RF and sound screened rooms. Nevertheless, in order to record EVP there has to be noise in the audio circuits of the device used to produce the EVP. For this reason, those who attempt to record EVP often use two recorders that have differing quality audio circuitry and rely on noise heard from the poorer quality instrument to generate EVP.

A few German enthusiasts coined the term Instrumental TransCommunication (ITC) to refer more generally to communication through any sort of electronic device such as tape recorders, fax machines, television sets or computers between spirits or other discarnate entities and the living. One particularly famous claimed incidence of ITC occurred when the image of EVP enthusiast Friedrich Jurgenson, whose funeral was held that day, was said to have appeared on a television in the home of a colleague, which had been purposefully tuned to a vacant channel. ITC enthusiastists also investigate TV and video camera feedback transmission loops.

Some EVP enthusiasts describe hearing the words in EVP as an ability, much like learning a new language. Skeptics say that the claimed instances are all either hoaxes or misinterpretations of natural phenomena. Neither EVP nor ITC are researched within the scientific community and, as ideas, are generally derided by scientists when asked.

Holonomic brain theory, originated by psychologist Karl Pribram and initially developed in collaboration with physicist David Bohm, is a model for human cognition that is drastically different from conventionally accepted ideas. Pribram and Bohm suggest a model of cognitive function as being guided by a matrix of neurological wave interference patterns situated temporally between holographic gestalt perception and discrete quantum vectors derived from reward anticipation potentials.

Pribram was originally struck by the similarity of the hologram idea in brain function, along with Bohm’s idea of implicate order in physics, and contacted him for collaboration. In particular, the fact that information about an image point is distributed throughout the hologram, such that each piece of the hologram contains some information about the entire image, seemed suggestive to Pribram about how the brain could encode memories. Pribram was encouraged in this line of speculation by the fact that others had found that the spatial frequency encoding displayed by cells of the visual cortex was best described as a Fourier transform of the input pattern. This holographic idea lead to the coining of the term holonomic to describe the idea in wider contexts than just holograms.

In this model, each sense functions as a lens, refocusing wave patterns either by perceiving a specific pattern or context as swirls, or by discerning discrete grains or quantum units. David Bohm has said that if you take the lenses away, what you are left with is a hologram.

According to Pribram and Bohm, future orientation is the essence of cognitive function, which they have attempted to define through use of the Fourier theorem and quantum mechanical formulae. According to Pribram, the tuning of wave frequency in cells of the primary visual cortex plays a role in visual imaging, while such tuning in the auditory system has been well established for decades. Pribram and colleagues also assert that similar tuning occurs in the somatosensory cortex.

Pribram distinguishes between propagative nerve impulses on the one hand, and slow potentials  or hyperpolarizations that are essentially static. At this temporal interface, he indicates, the wave interferences form holographic patterns.

What the data suggests is that there exists in the cortex a multidimensional holographic process serving as an attractor or point toward which muscular contractions operate to achieve a specified environmental result. The specification has to be based on prior experience of the species or the individual and stored in holographic form. Activation of the stored process involves patterns of muscular contraction guided by basal ganglia, cerebellar, brain stem and spinal cord, whose sequential operations need only to satisfy the target encoded in the image of achievement much as the patterns of sequential operations of heating and cooling must meet the setpoint of the thermostat.

According to this theory, waveforms within the matrix of a distributed system allow fluctuations taking place to create new patterns, and the resulting dynamic potential can then organize new foci of activity oriented to the precipitation of strategic planning and exercise of free will.

In a 1998 interview, Pribram addressed the understanding of cognitive potential, stating that if you get into your potential mode, then new things can happen. But usually free will is conceived of in terms of how many constraints are operating, and we have in statistics a notion of degrees of freedom. I think our will essentially is constrained, more or less. We have so many degrees of freedom, and the more degrees of freedom we have, the more we feel free, and we have freedom of choice.

Ayurveda emerged from the spiritual texts of ancient India, known as the Vedas, or Books of Wisdom. These date back at least five thousand years and are widely regarded as humanity’s oldest literature.

According to Ayurveda, health is not a state defined by lab tests or yearly check ups. Health is a continuous and participatory process that embraces all aspects of life: physical, mental, emotional, behavioral, spiritual, familial, social, and universal. Achieving balance on all levels of being is the true measure of vibrant health. The average person simply does not exist in Ayurvedic medicine. Every individual is unique with a specific blueprint for health. By providing a universal framework for understanding these blueprints, Ayurveda teaches us to honor and support our true individual natures.

In the West, we have separated ourselves from the food we eat. Food plays a role comparable to that of gasoline for a car, something apart from the body, used for fuel and energy. But the same energy is also present in every plant and morsel of food on this planet. Since the energetic foundation of the body and food are the same, we cannot truly separate ourselves from the food we eat. The energy of food not only nourishes every cell on a physical level but also replenishes our underlying life force.

A balanced diet directly nurtures the body, mind, senses and spirit. Food gives strength, sustenance, energy, and radiance. Ayurvedic nutrition is therefore intimately tied to what are defined as three doshas and takes into account the unique dietary requirements of every individual.

The doshas are biological energies found throughout the human body and mind. They govern all physical and mental processes and provide every living being with an individual blueprint for health and fulfillment. On a basic level, Ayurveda describes three major constitutional types: Vata, Pitta, and Kapha.

Due to their subtle, energetic quality, the doshas cannot be perceived directly in the body. Their presence, however, is visible through distinct qualities and actions, ranging from complex biological functions to personality traits. Every cell of the body contains Vata, Pitta, and Kapha. It is the varying proportion of these doshas, however, that contributes to an individual’s unique mind-body composition.

A person with a predominantly Vata constitution is commonly quick thinking, thin, and fast moving. A Pitta type, on the other hand, will have qualities such as a fiery personality and a reddish complexion. A Kapha type will typically have a solid body frame and calm temperament. While one dosha predominates in most individuals, a second dosha typically has a strong influence. For example, a Vata-Pitta type will have Vata as a primary constitution but also embody strong Pitta characteristics. A Pitta-Vata type, by contrast, will identify more with Pitta characteristics, but also have strong Vata traits.

The doshas are dynamic energies that constantly change in response to our actions, thoughts, emotions, the foods we eat, the seasons, and any other sensory inputs that feed our mind and body. When we live into the fulfillment of our individual natures, we naturally make lifestyle and dietary decisions that foster balance within our doshas. When we live against our intrinsic natures, we support unhealthy patterns that lead to physical and mental imbalances.

An increased or aggravated doshic state leads to the greatest number of imbalances. Such imbalances can arise from any number of influences, including following a dosha aggravating diet or, more generally, carrying too much stress in life. One can initiate a restoration of balance, however, when one begins to understand both their unique constitutional make up and how to harmonize their internal environment and its needs with the external world.

We are most susceptible to imbalances related to our predominant dosha. A Pitta type, for example, may experience heartburn after eating spicy foods. The key to remember is that like increases like, while opposites create balance. By simply choosing cooling or more alkalizing foods, one can avoid heartburn, while also supporting the underlying health of the mind and body.

Ayurveda classifies different foods in relation to their energetic qualities and specific doshic effects. Modern nutrition, by contrast, classifies foods according to their independent physical components, for example, how many calories, carbohydrates, or grams of protein they contain. This approach echoes the West’s greater mechanistic view of the body and fails to capture the true dynamism of food. Ayurveda values these nutrients as a component of a greater synergistic whole and how they intermix to create vibrant and nutritious food.

Ayurvedic nutrition focuses on the way food affects three major areas: the doshas, the digestion, and the mind. According to Ayurveda, imbalances within the doshas lead to improper digestion. Poor digestion, in turn, plants the seeds for future illness. Ayurvedic nutrition extends to the mind by observing that food directly affects the qualities of the mind. Ayurveda also recognizes that we constantly process “mental food” in the form of sensory impressions, thoughts, and emotions. Just as heartburn or bloating can occur after a big meal, failure to digest mental food properly will result in disharmony of the mind, or mental indigestion.

All foods can be examined within an Ayurvedic framework. Questions regarding whether or not certain foods are Ayurvedic are irrelevant. Ayurveda offers a universal system of nutrition that teaches us to eat in accordance with our individual constitutions. It goes far beyond a rigid set of one dietary guideline by allowing individuals to tailor diets specifically for themselves. In this sense, Ayurveda inherently offers billions of diet plans.

A cornerstone of Ayurvedic nutrition is that food satiates the senses and stimulates the entire digestive system to carry out its job effectively. Ayurveda also suggests slow changes in eating habits, rather than demanding abrupt dietary and lifestyle changes. Like any sudden change in life, rapid dietary shifts can often lead to physical and mental problems. Making gentle, non invasive changes, on the other hand, ensure that the body will not undergo a state of greater imbalance before getting healthier.