Category Archives: READING MATTER

Books I read & recommend

ABRACADABRA!

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abracadabra

ABRACADABRA

“By Abracadabra we signify
An infinite number of things.
‘Tis the answer to What? and How? and Why?
And Whence? and Whither?— a word whereby
The Truth (with the comfort it brings)
Is open to all who grope in night,
Crying for Wisdom’s holy light.

Whether the word is a verb or a noun
Is knowledge beyond my reach.
I only know that ’tis handed down.
From sage to sage,
From age to age—
An immortal part of speech!

Of an ancient man the tale is told
That he lived to be ten centuries old,
In a cave on a mountain side.
(True, he finally died.)
The fame of his wisdom filled the land,
For his head was bald, and you’ll understand
His beard was long and white
And his eyes uncommonly bright.

Philosophers gathered from far and near
To sit at his feet and hear and hear,
Though he never was heard
To utter a word
But “Abracadabra, abracadab,
Abracada, abracad,
Abraca, abrac, abra, ab!
‘Twas all he had,
‘Twas all they wanted to hear, and each
Made copious notes of the mystical speech,
Which they published next—
A trickle of text
In the meadow of commentary.
Mighty big books were these,
In a number, as leaves of trees;
In learning, remarkably— very!

He’s dead,
As I said,
And the books of the sages have perished,
But his wisdom is sacredly cherished.
In Abracadabra it solemnly rings,
Like an ancient bell that forever swings.
O, I love to hear
That word make clear
Humanity’s General Sense of Things.”

~ Jamrach Holobom

from THE DEVIL’S DICTIONARY by AMBROSE BIERCE, written between 1888 – 1906

_____________________________

AbierceAmbrose Gwinnett Bierce (June 24, 1842 – circa 1914) was an American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist. He wrote the short story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” and compiled a satirical lexicon, The Devil’s Dictionary. His vehemence as a critic, his motto “Nothing matters”, and the sardonic view of human nature that informed his work.  In 1913, Bierce traveled to Mexico to gain first-hand experience of the Mexican Revolution. While traveling with rebel troops, he disappeared without a trace.

 READ THE ENTIRE TEXT OF THE DEVIL’S DICTIONARY

FALSE MEMORIES ARE REAL

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Total-Recall-2012-vs-1990-vs-1966

If you read the book ALIEN INTERVIEW, you know that humans on Earth are given amnesia and false memories between each incarnation or lifetime. ALIEN INTERVIEW, edited by Lawrence R. SpencerThanks to modern “science”, we may soon be implanted with MORE FALSE MEMORIES while we are sleeping!  Earth “scientists” have now demonstrated (using laboratory mice) that they can make us all feel “happy” about being imprisoned on Earth.  Remember the films “Total Recall” from 1990 or 2012?  The “science” in these so-called “science fiction” films will soon to become what we call “reality”.  In other words, you may be “happy”, but you won’t know who you are, where you are, when you are, why you are, or what is or isn’t real.

Read the article below, and the links to other articles on the subject published in The Guardian

“Researchers at CRNS (click here to see a list of the Global Corporations who fund the research done at The National Center for Scientific Research) in Paris create artificial positive feelings in mouse’s memory for first time during sleep, highlighting possible new treatment for depression. Scientists have succeeded in creating false but happy memories in mice, in the first demonstration of memory manipulation during sleep.

In the study, positive feelings about a particular place were artificially written into the animal’s memory, which caused them to seek out that place in search of a reward when they woke up. The discovery that emotional memory can be readily manipulated has echoes of the the film, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, in which Jim Carey’s character has every recollection about his failed relationship wiped clean using a fictional mind-reading technology.

The scientists say that the findings could pave the way for new treatments that would allow patients to overcome depression or deeply entrenched painful memories. Karim Benchenane, the neuroscientist who led the research at the CNRS in Paris, said: “The idea is to use this as a tool for post-traumatic stress disorder.”

Steve Ramirez, a neuroscientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology who is also working on memory manipulation, described the research as a “technical tour-de-force”. He said: “It demonstrates a little bit of mastery over how the brain works. “In future it should be possible to dampen the punch of traumatic memories in people.”

memory master image-1409150120327In the study, scientists implanted two electrodes in the brains of mice – one in a region of the hippocampus, the brain’s memory centre, involved in mapping locations and the second one in the brain’s reward centre.

In both mice and humans, our environment is physically mapped out in the brain by so-called “place cells”, which light up like coordinates on a grid as we move through space. The scientists picked a particular place cell neuron and observed which location it related to in real-life as the mouse roamed around a large exploration area.

During sleep, mice typically replay these sequences of place cell activity – effectively their memory replaying where they have been during waking hours.  The scientists rigged up the electrodes, such that during sleep, whenever the target place cell became active it triggered the delivery of a reward stimulation in the second electrode.
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Although the memory of the place was initially neutral, during its sleep, the mouse learned to associate it with something positive happening.

“When they woke up the mouse went straight to that place as though it was waiting for a reward,” said Benchenane.

The study demonstrates what we subjectively know to be true — that the factual content of our memories and the emotional content are stored in different brain centres and can be changed independently.

false_memory-e1342143637727Benchenane believes the findings could be the basis for a non-invasive tool for memory manipulation in humans. Rather than electrodes, functional MRI scans could be used to identify when a person is replaying a specific memory during sleep, he suggested.

However, the authors said they would be cautious about rushing to try and test this in PTSD patients. “It might be extremely dangerous to get a reward for something fearful,” he said.

Ramirez agreed that in future, the findings could have clinical applications. “The big thing technologically is we don’t have a good non-invasive way of manipulating brain activity. One day it should be possible though,” he said.”

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/mar/09/rodent-recall-false-but-happy-memories-implanted-in-sleeping-mice

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/jul/25/false-memory-implanted-mouse-brain

BEING YOU

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GANDHIJi

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), commonly known as Mahatma Gandhi or Bapu (Father of Nation), was the preeminent leader of Indian nationalism in British-ruled India. Employing non-violent civil disobedience, Gandhi led India to independence and inspired movements for non-violence, civil rights and freedom across the world.

The son of a senior government official, Gandhi was born and raised in a Bania community in coastal Gujarat, and trained in law in London.  Assuming leadership of the Indian National Congress in 1921, Gandhi led nationwide campaigns for easing poverty, expanding women’s rights, building religious and ethnic amity, ending untouchability, increasing economic self-reliance, and above all for achieving Swaraj—the independence of India from British domination.

In London he committed himself to truthfulness, temperance, chastity, and vegetarianism. His return to India to work as a lawyer was a failure, so he went to South Africa for a quarter century, where he absorbed ideas from many sources, most of them non-Indian. He was exposed to Jain ideas through his mother who, was in contact with Jain monks. Themes from Jainism that Gandhi absorbed included asceticism; compassion for all forms of life; the importance of vows for self-discipline; vegetarianism; fasting for self-purification; mutual tolerance among people of different creeds; and “syadvad”, the idea that all views of truth are partial.

Gandhi strongly favored the emancipation of women, and he went so far as to say that “the women have come to look upon me as one of themselves.” He opposed purdah, child marriage, untouchability, and the extreme oppression of Hindu widows, up to and including sati. He especially recruited women to participate in the salt tax campaigns and the boycott of foreign products. Gandhi’s success in enlisting women in his campaigns, including the salt tax campaign, anti-untouchability campaign and the peasant movement, gave many women a new self-confidence and dignity in the mainstream of Indian public life.

In his last year, unhappy at the partition of India, Gandhi worked to stop the carnage between Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs that raged in the border area between India and Pakistan. He was assassinated on 30 January 1948.

Gandhi’s philosophy was not theoretical but one of pragmatism, that is, practicing his principles in the moment. Asked to give a message to the people, he would respond, “My life is my message.”