The Feldenkrais Method is an educational system centered on movement, aiming to expand and refine the use of the self through awareness. It holds that there is no separation between mind and body, and thus learning to move better can improve one’s overall well-being on many levels. It is intended for those wishing to reduce pain or limitations in movement, and many who want to improve their general well-being and personal development. Because it uses movement as the primary vehicle for gaining awareness, it is directly applicable to disorders that arise from restricted or habitually poor movement. But as a process for gaining awareness, the system claims to expand a person’s choices and responses to many aspects of life such as emotions, relationships, and intellectual tasks, and it applies at any level, from severe disorder to highly professional performance. 

The Feldenkrais Method is applied in two forms by practitioners, who generally receive more than 800 hours of formal training over the course of four years. In an Awareness Through Movement lesson, the teacher verbally directs students through movement sequences and various foci of attention. Usually this occurs in a group setting, although the lessons can also be given to individuals, or recorded. There are more than a thousand lessons available, most of them are organized around a specific movement function.

In a Functional Integration lesson, the practitioner uses his or her hands to guide the movement of the student, who may be sitting, lying or standing. The practitioner also uses a hands-on technique to help the student experience the connections among various parts of the body. Movements are developed from the habitual patterns of the student, thereby tailoring the lesson to the individual. This approach allows the student to feel comfortable, and to experience the movement in detail. Through precision of touch and movement, the student learns how to eliminate excess effort and thus move more freely and easily.

Feldenkrais taught that changes in the physical experience could be described as changes in the self image, which can be conceived as the mapping of the motor cortex to the body. Activity in the motor cortex plays a key role in the sense of body position. Feldenkrais taught that changes in our ability to move are inseparable from changes in our conscious perception of ourselves. He aimed to clarify and work therapeutically with this relationship, with instructions that involved both specific movement instructions and invitations to introspection.

Lessons may be very specific in addressing particular issues brought by the student, or can be more global in scope. Although the technique does not specifically aim to eliminate pain or cure physical complaints, such issues are treated as valuable information that may inform the lesson. Issues such as chronic muscle pain may naturally resolve themselves as the student learns a more relaxed approach to his or her physical experience, and a more integrated, freer, easier way to move.

Indefinite Monism is a philosophical conception of reality that asserts that only Awareness is real and that the wholeness of Reality can be conceptually thought of in terms of immanent and transcendent aspects. The immanent aspect is denominated simply as Awareness, while the transcendent aspect is referred to as Omnific Awareness.

Awareness in this system is not equivalent to consciousness. Rather, Awareness is the venue for consciousness, and the transcendent aspect of Reality, Omnific Awareness, is what consciousness is of.

Within this system anything whatsoever can arise from Omnific Awareness, thus the use of the term “indefinite” in labeling this monism. What does arise as the existents that we are conscious of is conditioned by the affections of Awareness for its display. Thus this system does away with the idea of an active, creative force called Free Will and replaces it with an active volitional component known as affections, that does not itself create anything, whether movement or structure, but instead, constrains the possibilities of what arises naturally.

The distinction between physical phenomena and mental phenomena is also removed by this system. Omnific Awareness gives rise to everything – thus the use of the term omnific – and this includes thoughts that phenomenally arise in brains as well as existents that arise phenomenally as things in the world. By removing this distinction this system cuts off the inevitable paradoxes that otherwise arise in philosophical systems. The implications of this move create a number of novel, but necessary, modifications in current categorizations of ideas about reality and our study of it.

For instance, ontology – the study of being – is necessitated by the assumption of a physical world of separate things, but when viewed surjectively ontology collapses into epistemology – the study of the methods or grounds of knowledge. Similarly, by removing the distinction between mental and physical phenomena the tensions created in dualist understandings of reality of how the mental and physical interact with one another are dispelled. Surprisingly, the removal of this distinction also completely removes the need for claims of metaphysical realms of being or metaphysical processes, thus collapsing all of reality into this reality.

Yoga Nidra refers to yogic sleep and yogic lucid dreaming. It has been practiced as a spiritual practice for millennia by ascetics and yogic practitioners. Of the three states of consciousness of waking, dreaming and deep sleep refer specifically to the conscious awareness of the deep sleep state, referred to as “prajna”. This is the third of the four levels of consciousness relating to the state represented by the M of AUM. The four states are waking, dreaming, sleep, and turiya, the fourth state. The state of Yoga Nidra, conscious deep sleep, is beyond or subtler than the imagery and mental process of the waking and non-lucid dreaming states. As a state of conscious deep sleep, Yoga Nidra is a universal principle, and is not the exclusive domain of any specific tradition.

The practice of yogic relaxation has been found to effectively reduce tension and improve psychological well being of people suffering from anxiety. The autonomic symptoms of high anxiety such as headache, giddiness, chest pain, palpitations, sweating and abdominal pain respond exceptionally well to yoga nidra. Practicing yoga nidra successfully decreases the time required to fall asleep, thereby curing insomnia.

Adherents of the Yoga Nidra as guided visualisation technique hold that half an hour of Yoga Nidra may yield the benefit of up to three hours of standard sleep, although the regular engagement of this practice as a sleep substitute is contraindicated as the bodymind still requires sufficient rest through standard sleep. This tradition of Yoga Nidra should not be conflated with techniques of autosuggestion and autogenous training, though there is a palpable commonality in process if not in application.

Through practice of Yoga Nidra, one achieves true relaxation. During the practice of yoga nidra, one appears to be sleeping, but the consciousness is functioning at the deeper level of awareness. It is sleep with a trace of deep awareness. It is a state of mind in between wakefulness and dream. Normally when we sleep, we loose track of our self and cannot utilize this capacity of mind. Yoga nidra enables the person to be conscious in this state and nurture the seed of great will power, inspire the higher self, and enjoy the vitality of life.

With constant practice of Yoga Nidra people have found that the technique restructures and transforms the whole personality from within. With every session of yoga nidra, one is actually burning the old habits and tendencies in order to be born anew. This process is quicker than other systems that work on an external basis. It is a most powerful method for reshaping the personality.

Walter John Kilner was a medical electrician at St. Thomas Hospital in London. From 1879 to 1893 he was in charge of electrotherapy. He wrote papers on a range of subjects but is today best remembered for his study The Human Atmosphere. In his spare time he was a keen chess player.

In 1911 he published one of the first western medical studies of the Human Atmosphere or Aura, proposing its existence, nature and possible use in medical diagnosis and prognosis. Kilner attempted to invent devices by which the naked eye might be trained to observe auric activity which, he hypothesised, was probably ultraviolet radiation, stating that the phenomena he saw were not affected by electromagnets.

Glass slides or “Kilner Screens” containing alcoholic solutions of variously coloured dyes, including a blue dye called dicyanin, were used as filters in “Kilner Goggles” which, together with lights, were held to train the eyes to perceive electromagnetic radiation outside the normal spectrum of visible light. After being so trained, one could dispense with the apparatus. Kilner did not recommend merely viewing the subject through these lenses.

According to his study, Kilner and his associates were able to perceive auric formations which he called the Etheric Double, the Inner Aura and the Outer Aura, extending several inches from patients’ naked bodies, and his book gave instructions by which the reader might construct and use similar goggles.

The only drawbacks to Kilner’s method are the scarcity and toxicity of the chemicals he recommended. Later, Oscar Bagnall recommended substituting the dye pinacyanol (dissolved in triethanolamine) but this dye is also not easy to obtain. Lindgren states that cobalt blue and purple glass may be substituted for the dyes used by Kilner and Bagnall.

Kilner’s book was greeted with scepticism as well as enthusiasm. In 1920 a revised edition of his book was published and sympathetically reviewed. Kilner’s work was well-timed for the heyday of Theosophy and his findings were incorporated into Arthur E. Powell’s book The Etheric Double. Powell rightly made clear that Kilner had expressly differentiated between his own work and the clairvoyance and eastern systems of spiritualism.

Meta-Medicine claims to be an advanced method of diagnosis, incorporating mind-body diagnostics and therapy based on a biopsychosocial model of integrative medicine. It also claims to provide a scientific holistic explanation of health issues as a basis for therapy and healing.

Based on the body-mind-spirit-social connection and integrative medicine, Meta-Medicine uses 10 core principles to redefine our understanding of disease, healing and health process. It works by using the body’s biological survival programming and claims to scientifically map physical symptoms, via the brain, to their primal conflict.

Meta-Medicine Health Coaches claim to assist their clients to uncover the root cause of the stressful events that may cause their health issues and create awareness of the biological, psychological and social meaning of their symptoms as an important step towards a complete healing.

Meta-Medicine has it’s roots in the works of Dr. Geerd Ryke Hamer and other innovative health experts like Candace Pert, Bruce Lipton, Carl Simonton and Deepak Chopra.

Dr. Geerd Ryke Hamer formulated his Germanic New Medicine in 1978. He was the first to describe the two phases of disease, the importance of biological conflict shocks, the organ-brain-conflict relationship and embryonic layer connection to symptoms. Dr. Hamer has been very controversial for his extreme views and remarks against conventional medicine.

In her book Molecules of Emotion, psychoneuroimmunologist Candice Pert discusses the revolution since the 60s in mind-body thinking. She throws out the old idea of our brains communicating with our bodies via hard-wired neurons that talk to each other through chemical neurotransmitters. Instead, her research showed that these neurotransmitters are discovered throughout the body, showing that the mind and the body has a two-way conversation using chemicals created by our thoughts, hence the phrase ‘molecules of emotions’.

Deepak Chopra MD, author of several books looking at mind-body interactions including Quantum Healing points out that over the past few decades neurotransmitters for various emotions and feelings have been uncovered, changing pain, hunger and disease from something that was considered ‘all in your head’ to a complicated interaction between body and mind.

Cellular biologist Bruce Lipton continues this thinking, offering a mechanism for how thoughts change our bodies to create and cure disease. He points out that DNA is not the brain of the cell. Lipton believes that our thoughts and emotions turn our genes on and off, and likens our mind and body to TV sets, with the environment as the TV signal. This kind of thinking is readily accepted by Meta-Medicine consultants.

The Meta-Medicine Association, a nonprofit organization registered in California, has been established as the worldwide licensing and accreditation body of Meta-Medicine Health Coaches and Trainers. The organization is intent on establishing a wide network of health professionals including doctors, naturopaths and other licensed therapists training in Meta-Medicine.

The Heal Breast Cancer Foundation is the research department of the Meta-Medicine Association and is focusing on researching the healing mechanism of breast cancer based on a biopsychosocial model of integrative medicine. Research projects include the Breast Health Prevention Initiative, Brain Relay Diagnostics and Traumatic Life Events as causative factors of disease.

The 10 main principles of Meta-Medicine are:

1. Mind, body and spirit are not separate, but a unity interacting with our environment in a synchronous way.

2. Awareness is a key element in every healing process. Disease is a spiritual journey of signals pointing us towards learning lessons.

3. Traumatic life events are the starting point of physical and psychological changes. Every organ is connected to a specific emotional conflict content (like coronary = territory conflict, skin-epidermis = loss-of-contact, separation, stomach mucos = indigestion, conflict)

4. The brain acts like a computer and using brain imaging techniques like a CT scan we can distinguish between ‘brain relays’. Each brain relay correlates with specific organs and conflict contents

5. Disease is a process with two phases and 9 key points which every disease can go through. One phase of disease is the ‘stress’ phase, another the ‘regeneration’ phase. Often what we consider two unrelated symptoms actually are part of the same organ/disease process. 

6. Disease is a higly intelligent process. Every symptom has a unique biological and psychological meaning which allows a patient to learn their life lessons.

7. Depending on the evolutionary development of organs each organ reacts with specific symptoms in the stress and regeneration phase enabling doctors and health professionals to properly diagnose and understand symptoms and their meaning.

8. Microbes, bacteria, viruses or fungi are biological helpers in a disease process, not the cause.

9. All healing is self healing. Every patient is unique and requires an individual integrative therapy and healing plan which should include biopsychosocial components and focus on prevention, creating awareness in a patients life.

10. Patients are encouraged to be responsible and knowledgeable decision makers. Taking responsibility for our own health is the first step towards creating a health lifestyle.

Divination, from the Latin divinare to be inspired by a god, is the attempt of ascertaining information by interpretation of omens or an alleged supernatural agency, either by or on behalf of a querent.

If a distinction is to be made between divination and fortune telling, divination has a formal or ritual and often social character, usually in a religious context, while fortune telling is a more everyday practice for personal purposes. Divination is often dismissed by skeptics, including the scientific community, as being mere superstition.

Psychologist Julian Jaynes categorized divination according to four types. 

1) Omens and omen texts: “The most primitive, clumsy, but enduring method is the simple recording of sequences of unusual or important events.” Chinese history offers scrupulously documented occurrences of strange births, the tracking of natural phenomena, and other data. Chinese governmental planning relied on this method of forecasting for long range strategy. It is not unreasonable to assume that modern scientific inquiry began with this kind of divination.

2) Sortilege, consisting of the casting of lots, or sortes, whether with sticks, stones, bones, beans, coins, or some other item. Modern playing cards and board games developed from this type of divination.

3) Augury, a form of divination that ranks a set of given possibilities. It can be qualitative, using shapes and proximities. For example, dowsing developed from this type of divination. The Romans in classical times used Etruscan methods of augury such as hepatoscopy, which examined the livers of sacrificed animals.

4) Spontaneous. An unconstrained form of divination, free from any particular medium, and actually a generalization of all types of divination. The answer comes from whatever object the diviner happens to see or hear. Some religions use a form of bibliomancy where they ask a question, riffle the pages of their holy book, and take as their answer the first passage their eyes light upon. Other forms of spontaneous divination include reading auras and New Age methods of Feng Shui such as intuitive and Fuzion.

In the 2nd century, Lucian devoted a witty essay to the career of a charlatan, Alexander the false prophet, trained by “one of those who advertise enchantments, miraculous incantations, charms for your love affairs, visitations for your enemies, disclosures of buried treasure, and successions to estates”. Though most Romans believed in dreams and charms, divination was considered a sin in most Christian denominations.

Mind wandering is a topic in experimental psychology that refers to the experience that thoughts rarely remain on a single topic for a long period of time when people are not engaged in an attention demanding task. In particular, mindwandering refers to a sub topic in the study of attention and consciousness, relating to times when attention may lapse, or wander. Mind wandering experiences are defined by their lack of relation to the task in hand and are more likely to occur during driving, reading and other activities where vigilance may be low.

In these situations, people report having no memory of what happened in the surrounding environment while preoccupied with their thoughts. Although mind wandering was first discussed by John Antrobus and Jerome Singer in the late 1960s it has more recently become a growing research topic in cognitive psychology, cognitive science and cognitive neuroscience.

Mind wandering and other private experiences can be studied using thought sampling, or simply asking participants what they are thinking about at any given moment. Another way in which mind wandering has been studied is through the use of the sustained attention to response task, originally developed by Ian Robertson and his colleagues at Trinity College, Dublin to explore deficits in executive control after lesions to the frontal lobe.

From a scientific perspective, two aspects of mind wandering are of interest. The first is understanding how the brain produces what William James referred to as the stream of consciousness. This aspect of mindwandering research is focused on understanding how the brain generates the spontaneous and relatively unconstrained thoughts that are experienced when the mind wanders. One candidate neural mechanism for generating this aspect of experience is a network of regions in the frontal and parietal cortex, which Washington University neuroscientist Marcus Raichle has dubbed the default network. This network of regions is highly active even when subjects are resting with their eyes closed, suggesting a role in generating spontaneous internal thoughts.

The second aspect of mind wandering of scientific interest is what it means for the mind to process information that is unrelated to the outside environment. One way to describe this state of attention is to say that when the mind wanders, awareness is decoupled from the task environment. Studies have suggested that memory for concurrently presented information is impaired when the mind wanders.

In addition to neural models, computational models of consciousness based on Bernard Baars’ Global Workspace theory suggest that mind wandering, or spontaneous thought may involve competition between internally and externally generated activities attempting to gain access to a limited capacity central network.

Recapitulation is a term coined by Carlos Castaneda in his book, The Eagle’s Gift, published in 1982. In the book, Florinda, one of don Juan’s associates, teaches Castaneda about the process and purpose of recapitulation. She explains that recapitulation consists of recollecting one’s life down to the most insignificant detail and that when a recapitulation was complete, one no longer abided by the limitations of their person. She further explained that in the process of recapitulation one recounts all the feelings they invested in whatever memory they were reviewing.

Florinda told Castaneda that recapitulation often began with a list of items to be recalled. One then proceeded to work through the list one item at a time staying with the item until all of the emotions around the event had been felt. The recapitulation was done with the breath. While recalling the event, one inhaled slowly, moved their head from the right shoulder to the left. The next breath moved from left to right and was an exhalation. The purpose of the breath was to restore energy. When breathing from right to left one would “pick up the filaments they left behind” and when breathing from left to right they would “eject filaments left in them by other luminous bodies involved in the event being recollected.”

Following Castaneda’s introduction of the term recapitulation, Victor Sanchez, author of The Toltec Path of Recapitulation: Healing Your Past to Free Your Soul, published in 2001, also wrote about a technique by the same name. For Sanchez, recapitulation is a procedure of self healing. It is done by reliving the events on one’s past. The damage is caused by repetitive emotional conflicts. When these conflicts persist they drain one’s vital energy. Sanchez says he developed and adapted techniques of recapitulation described in his book from procedures he learned from his time with the Wirrarika people, whom he calls the surviving Toltecs.

Lujan Matus, author of The Art of Stalking Parallel Perception, regards the traditional method of recapitulation as being too rigid whereby it can actually hinder the practitioners ability to establish a direct connection with spirit. He takes an alternative approach to the recapitulation technique which is less structured and more spontaneous in its application.

According to Kristopher Raphael, author of The Mastery of Awareness, Seeing Through the Eyes of a Jaguar, published in 2003, emotional charges blind one from perceiving reality as it truly is. Recapitulation is used to discharge one’s emotions so that they do not react and one can perceive clearly.