Extraordinary Minds

Extraordinary Minds

April, Spring, a metamorphosis happening on the earth everywhere you look. How easy it is to look at the miracle of it all with eyes that have seen it all before. How extraordinary Nature is. How extraordinary we are. Somehow the human condition has commonly been dummied down into an expectation that falls so short of what is possible. We accept as nothing the phenomena that a bulb knows exactly how to hold on to its energy in a comatose like state for months at a time and then at just the right time, they all know to begin simultaneously to shoot up their tender fresh green stalks and leaves and emerge into an animated and glorious expression of the Divine. Simply magical and glorious. Ekhardt Tolle speaks of flowers being the first creation that emerged purely for the sensorial enjoyment the human experience.

But do we witness on a daily level the extraordinary, the magical, the beyond ordinariness in ourselves and each other and even come to expect it. Do we act like we "know" how things will unfold and then influence and direct our experiences into that experience, simply because we are co-creators of our reality according to the Observer Effect of quantum physics? This basically states that once we place our attention upon an event or experience, we cannot help but influence it. So why not begin to try an experiment. What if you started to play with possibilities that were greater than you previously thought possible? Maybe stretch yourself a bit. After all it was not long ago that it was common thought that what you could not see did not exist. So just because we could not see gravity, or x-ray or radio waves surely in retrospect did not mean that they did not exist, right?

So this month while surrounded by the ubiquitous display of the magic of spring, see what other metamorphosis or transformative experience you could dream possible in your life. Could you open up to the possibility of creating new adventures in your life, to having unexpected abundance pop into your experience, possibly a long desired opportunity appear without effort?

For me, a just recently had such a doorway open. I have always enjoyed singing but never done it outside the privacy of my own home or car. So this past year I joined the Open Circle Singers, purely for the joy of it. Besides receiving the absolute pleasure of expressing myself in a wonderful group of people vocally, we were just recently given the opportunity to perform in a large group, accompanied by many children from throughout the Puget Sound to sing a performance for the Dalai Lama at Qwest Field during his Days of Compassion in April. This I never could have planned, but I trust that as I follow my joy, and am open to all possibilities, any and all magic can unfold. Have a magical and transformative, and extraordinary April!

Namaste,
"Dr. Craig"

Featured Wellness Study:

Placebos and Medications, Does What We Think Really Matter? Placebos are a topic that I love to discuss. They are simply the best deal in the world. After all, what other single (sugar) pill can affect 30-50% of all diseases and conditions known to mankind? I have always felt that the scientific research community was missing the boat on not studying this phenomena as a much higher priority. What has been dismissed as an annoying research-spoiler for big drug companies, actually points to the greatest insight of all that what we think about and what we put in or do to our bodies really matters!

A recent 2008 study performed at M.I.T. and published in the Journal of the A.M.A., proved the point in a rather expensive manner. Volunteers were given two pills; one group received a placebo said to cost $2.50 per pill and described as "a potent opioid-agonist that provides fast-acting, long lasting pain relief." The other group received a discounted 10 cent version of the same pill. The group receiving the higher priced version of the placebo accounted for a 30% increased reduction in pain compared to the discounted version, in other words, expectations are a key determiner to success. The average cost of a prescription of a brand medication these days is $111 compared to $32 for a generic drug.

According to Ted Kaptchuk, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, "How you package the experience…leads people to expect different outcomes, and those outcomes become embedded in human biology…This is just more evidence that the experience of illness is not only a biological event. Our beliefs, our imagination, our expectations, the environmental cues we receive all contribute to how we experience illness and death."

Acknowledgment given to Roni Caryn Rabin and MSNBC

Recommended Book of the Month:

Entangled Minds; Extrasensory Experiences in a Quantum Reality by Dean Radin.

Dean Radin is the author of The Conscious Universe and is one of the chief scientists at the Institute of Noetic Sciences I.O.N.S (www.noetic.org). I.O.N.S. is an organization that was founded in 1973 by Apollo astronaut Edgar Mitchell. Since then it has been a leader in the field of consciousness research and application in the world. Their literature describes the work performed as a study of both the science of consciousness and the art of living deeply.

This wonderful and very readable scientific paperback is an extremely worthwhile book to quote from when you talk about extraordinary phenomena with your family and friends and they ask "Where’s the beef?" That stuff is all a bunch of hogwash. You will be amazed at how thorough and deep is the research of what is referred to as Psi phenomena. What’s that? Common Psi experiences include mind-to-mind connections (telepathy), perceiving distant objects or events (clairvoyance), perceiving future events (precognitions), and mind-matter interactions (phsychokinesis). It may also include intuitive hunches, gut feelings, distant healing, the power of intention and others.

Dean takes you on a fascinating journey of hundreds of cases of meticulously documented research that are fascinating, humorous and mind-expanding of how our minds are "entangled" with a quantum physics based underpinning on how such phenomena exist. Much of the research and scientists involved know they have to bend over backwards in their meticulousness of their research design given the skepticism regarding these topics. Anyone fascinated by the topic of extraordinary awareness and capability of the human mind will find this a fascinating book.

If we have learned one thing from the history of invention and discovery, it is that, in the long run-and often in the short one-the most daring prophecies seem laughably conservative.
Arthur C. Clarke.