Thanks so much for sharing this.
It hits the nail on the head for what I've been saying to Lawson for
years:
Take a random sample sample of just about any group, and you'll find
that Joe and Jane on the street produce similar coherence levels to
the illustrious TM sidhas. It is a sad thing to discover, but it's
true. That's also the basic reason they have been utterly ignored by
mainstream neuroscientists. They all know the basic background
"truths" (baseline readings of the human brain) for their profession.
They know it inside and out--it's their job!
I also heard a similar story from a friend involved at MIU. The scans
showed nothing significant. Ole M. said 'there has to be something
there--you're just not looking closely enough.' So they looked and
looked and looked. Finally they found a slight "up-tick" in EEG
coherence in the Alpha band.
M. said "that's it".
And so they ran with it. A lie repeated enough times is believed to be
true--even moreso in a cult.
"Coherence" in EEG leads is now considered an obsolete measurement,
other than as a variable in a much better equation.
-----
That's all for me this week, thanks Eternal. :-)
On Oct 17, 2008, at 3:24 PM, I am the eternal wrote:
Many a year ago the US Public Broadcasting System's Nova ran a show
on TM. Jerry Jarvis was the head then. The producer of Nova was
skeptical of the brainwave coherence measurements the TMO was taking
so he asked to have his coherence measured. He did as well as our
sidhas. Candice Borland, Ph.D. psychology, University of Texas said
on a residence course that of course the Nova producer's brain waves
would be coherent. What would you expect from someone obviously
highly evolved enough to be the producer of Nova.
On Fri, Oct 17, 2008 at 11:06 AM, Vaj <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
On Oct 17, 2008, at 11:46 AM, off_world_beings wrote:
The primary difference between controls and experimental group for
the Buddhist meditators was found in gamma EEG synchrony and power.
Gamma waves are normally interpreted as a sign of concentration.
Incorrect. High-Amplitude Gamma Waves are a sign of "consciousness"
and "surprised recognition", that is experiencing directly the basis
of awareness in a state of constant amazement (but beyond the amazer
and amazement). The subjective experience is that of resting in a
nondual luminous vacuity. It correlates to samadhi in Patanjali
yogins and the same signature is found in Buddhist yogins (e.g. the
above graph). The primary difference is that the above posted EEG of
a western Buddhist yogin in samadhi, he went, at will, into the
state and stayed there for four hours. The state naturally and
spontaneously increased as time went on.
It's been independently replicated 4 times last time I heard.
The TM EEG is fleeting, brief and cannot be duplicated at will for
long periods of time and consists of coherence levels the same as
normally seen in waking state. It's actually a snippet of one
meditators session, not an entire session.
It has not been replicated.
There are a host of other differences, but that should suffice to
explain: one represents a fragile and shallow, common state, the
other a lasting and powerful state of consciousness.
