Conference hydra::dejavu

    Well, whether these things work in a consistent and explicable way
    across the board or not, it's obvious that they work for some people.
    Probably because the people want them to work, rather than that they do
    work, if you see what I mean.
    
    However, for those that can use them to straighten themselves out,
    they're a good thing. I don't think they do what they're claimed to do,
    I think they merely act as a catalyst and focussing aid for some
    people, and whilst there's nothing mystical in that, the report could
    have acknowledged its effectiveness.
    
    Laurie.

    re: .1 (Laurie) 
    
        Very good point.  "Acting as a catalyst" is precisely what
    *EVERYTHING* is about, I believe.  If one "wants" (not consciously,
    of course, but on some other level) to die of cancer, for example,
    one can't suddenly just have cancer and die...no, they must draw
    out some "plausible excuses" (such as exposure to radiation or
    asbestos or cigarettes, etc.) and use this as a "Catalyst" towards
    their cancer, etc.  In other words, the ends become predetermined,
    the means follow.  The effects PRECEDE the means.  The means act
    only as a catalytic agent.  Our whole life becomes a catalytic
    agent towards our "goal" of oneness with our Higher Self.  The 
    game, then, can become one of elegance.  Which of all the catalytic
    agents do you want to use towards that "goal?"  How elegant do 
    you want to make it?  Do you want to use pain, suffering, denial,
    despair, agony, sacrifice, etc. etc., as you (humankind or other
    lifetimes) always have or do you want to do it differently this
    time using joy, pleasure, happiness, ease, laughter, fun, light,
    etc., etc?
    
    Frederick
    

    re: .0,
    
>    Subliminal messages was one of a series of training techniques
>    evaluated by the council in a study called "In The Mind's Eye." The
>    study was undertaken at the request of the Army, which asked the
>    council to evaluate the "new age" techniques of enhancing human
>    performance.
>    Bjork said the committee found a number of widely used techniques
>    ineffective. 
    
    It might be interesting to know just what 'new age techniques'
    they DID find effective in this study.  The results of some
    prior studies done by the Army were popularized in a book called
    'The Warrior's Edge,' which among other things tried to support
    telepathy and mental hacksaw blade bending, complete with 
    mechanical stress charts.  Some other stuff, some even stranger,
    and some fairly mundane.
    
>    Mental practice, the technique of using the imagination to mentally
>    rehearse a physical activity, such as tennis, can help an athletes
>    performance if it is used as a supplement to physical practice. But to
>    maximize performance in the shortest time, nothing beats physical
>    practice. "Imagining yourself hitting a golf ball like Jack Nicklaus is
>    less helpful than hitting a bucket of balls,"Bjork said.
    
    I participated in a study of this nature in college, with a simple 
    throwing skill, a control group, a mental-practice-only group,
    a physical-practice group, a group which did both physical-and-mental
    practice, and a group which had training in relaxation skills plus
    mental practice.
    
    The ranking that resulted after a practice period of several weeks
    was mostly unsurprising :
    	1.  Physical and mental practice yielded the best results
    	2.  Physical practice alone yielded the second best results
    	3.  Mental practice alone yielded the third best results
    	4.  The control group was next.
    	5.  The group with relaxation skills and mental practice was
    		the worst in final testing.
    
    The last one was the only one slightly surprising.  The person doing
    the research had the theory that mental practice requires small
    muscular contractions in order to be effective, and that the relaxation
    drills reduced general muscle tone below the level where this could
    take place.
    
    						kind regards,
    
    						todd

    frederick,
    
    On what level does one "want" to die of cancer?  I've known people who
    died of cancer who had none of the vices that are supposed to cause it.
    
    I don't think *everything* is about acting as a catalyst.  This gets
    too close to the "blame the victim" theory of problem-solving in my
    opinion.  
    
    ~ginny
    

    re: .4 (Ginny)
    
          Yes, it *does* sound like "blame the victim."  (And this is
    where I have a difficult time explaining it...:-{  )   I believe
    that all life is predicated on beliefs and feelings (thoughts and
    attitudes) therefore all "non-life" must come from the same place
    (or a cessation of or a change of...)  So if one ends a life,
    it must be somehow tied in to these components.  HOW one dies is
    based on not only these components but on the choices and decisions
    that have been made throughout.  
         Anyway, back at the ranch, let us say one is aging faster than
    is comfortable...and life isn't going so great, perhaps.  And they
    remember their youth or younger days and somehow "yearn" to be young
    again.  (Okay...to sum up...there are thoughts and feelings here that
    'desire' to be young again.)  Meanwhile, the body *isn't* young.
    It's aged.  (Remember, the body is one of four "self" components--
    along with intellect, intuition and emotions.)  Following the laws
    of resonance, the body attempts to comply with these thoughts and
    feelings as best it knows how.  How did the body respond when one
    was young?  By producing more cells, by dividing, etc.  So, now here
    that person is at 57 years of age wanting to be young again and the
    body attempts to comply by doing the only thing it was ever "taught"
    to do...it's cells divide...but they divide without purpose, without
    function, with no game plan, no where to go.  And what does this get
    called?  It gets called cancer.   Is this the only way cancer grows?
    Of course not.  But here is an example of "no vices" producing cancer.
    In many cases, it stays this way.  But in lots of other cases, 
    "I want to be young again" isn't acceptable.  So, reaching into the
    sub-conscious bag of tricks, we remember growing up in a household
    of cigarette smokers.  Voila!  An acceptable belief.  Following the
    laws of resonance again, the body complies with the belief.
         This is massively simplified...I'd probably have to spend a great
    deal more time than even Jamie thinks I have to properly present this
    "argument."  
         It isn't blame the victim...it's about taking responsibility.
    (As I already brought scorn upon myself in =wn= attempting to express
    the distinction between these two concepts, I do not wish to lightly
    enter into it here.)  There is a major difference.  When our
    unconscious (or more likely our sub-conscious) mind sets up scenarios
    and we are unaware of this, then we can truly claim to be victims...
    for we are...we had no awareness.  Okay?  This is NOT the same as
    deliberately, consciously hanging out in an asbestos factory 
    eating plutonium and challenging nature.  But where is the
    responsibility?  The responsibility is clear in the second case "Well,
    you deliberately set that situation up!"  In the former case it is
    less clear.  How much responsibility do you/we take for our
    sub-conscious or un-conscious minds?  I contend that we take very
    little responsibility for them.  I *propose* that we need to be
    more aware of our sub-conscious (particularly, because it is more
    imminent) and un-conscious (where most of our power lies) and check
    out what gets stored in there.  What beliefs, what attitudes, what
    repressed feelings?  What happens to these stored thoughts and
    feelings?  How is the sub-conscious going to use them?  Or, if one
    is astute enough, they could conceivably by-pass the sub-conscious
    and get right to it in the un-conscious mind and really dazzle a
    reality (although it isn't likely...too much putrification from the
    sub-conscious is more likely to skew the outcome.)  So, Ginny,
    it comes down to responsibility...not blame.  Did I, in these
    simplistic explanations, make sense?
    
    Frederick
      

    It makes sense for the example you chose.  However, I'm talking about
    a friend who was 19 years old when she died of cancer.  Your "young
    again" explanation isn't valid in this situation.
    
    Ginny

    There seems to be a bit of confusion about the nature of cancer. A
    while back wrote a short guide to cancer in layman's language. This may
    help clear things up.

                                 Cancer 101.

    Your body starts life when the smallest cell in the human body, the
    male sperm cell, and the largest, the female egg cell, meet and fuse.
    Unlike the rest of the cells in your body each has only half the
    genetic code that will be the blueprint used to build you.

    The first thing that this new single cell animal does is divide, and
    this process of division is where the tale of cancer starts too. You
    see, the initial part of this process is to make a copy of the genetic
    material, the nucleus, that the cell contains. As you sit reading this,
    cells in your body are dividing, it is a process that starts shortly
    after conception, continues through your life and ends abruptly when
    you die.

    On a fairly regular basis the copying process does not produce an exact
    copy. The reasons for this failure to make a correct copy are legion,
    radiation in a spectrum ranging from the visible to gamma, invasion by
    a virus which tries to hijack the reproduction system to make copies of
    itself, substances that cause your cells to divide more rapidly than
    normal and just pure bad luck, are only some of the reasons. Since I
    told you that you were at this very moment dividing cells you will by
    now have made several faulty copies. Worried? Well don't be.

    You see all of these faulty cells fall into one of the following
    categories:

     1  Totally unviable. Here the cell cannot survive and dies of its own
        accord.

     2  Viable but not reproducible. This cell can live but is so messed up
        that it cannot make copies of itself.

     3  Non malignant. This one can reproduce, at the normal rate, and it
        tends to produce a tumour that will not invade the surrounding
        tissue. These can be dangerous if the tumour is pressing on
        something vital, like your brain, but the vast majority of them are
        fairly insignificant things, like beauty spots, and we all have 
        hundreds of them.

     4  Malignant but identifiable. In this case the cell produced is so
        wrong that your immune system notices and kills it because it does
        not recognise it as being part of your body.

     5  Malignant and non identifiable. This one is cancer. It looks enough
        like you  to fool your immune system. Unlike its non malignant
        cousin it can divide at a mind boggling rate and worst of all it
        breaks up and gets transported all round the body where it sets up
        shop making more and more copies of itself.

    And there ladies and gentlemen ends the similarity between one cancer
    and another. Depending what the original cell was, and the error that
    was made in copying gives an almost uncountable number of different
    cancers. The medical profession group them as best they can. At this
    point I should mention that the diagnosis of cancer is a very tricky
    business indeed. Despite what you may think, a pathologist does not
    spend the majority of the day dismantling the dead, but rather spends a
    good part of it peering down a microscope deciding if the tissue being
    scrutinized is malignant or benign. Some look benign and are sneakily
    malignant others look very aggressive and will suddenly just die off. 

   

RE:    <<< Note 1549.7 by HOO78C::ANDERSON "I despise the use of TLAs!" >>>

>    The reasons for this failure to make a correct copy are legion,
>    radiation in a spectrum ranging from the visible to gamma, invasion by
>    a virus which tries to hijack the reproduction system to make copies of
>    itself, substances that cause your cells to divide more rapidly than
>    normal and just pure bad luck, are only some of the reasons. 
                ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
	That sounds more paranormal than scientific!  

	Delia 

    Would the phrase "from no yet established cause" be more to your
    liking? I did say that I was using layman's language.
    
    Jamie.

    Jamie,
    
    On what do you base #4 -- the part about cancer being caused by
    malignant cells that your body can't recognize?
    
    Is it also not possible that a malignant cell can be identifiable by
    your body, but your immune system is so compromised that it cannot
    effectively fight it?  I believe that this may be closer to the case in
    AIDS victims with Kaposi's Sarcoma.
    
    Also, I've read numerous times of studies that have demonstrated that
    there is a  "cancer personality" profile.  These studies suggest that,
    among other personality attributes, chronic depression suppresses the 
    immune reaction enough to make people more prone to cancer, along with 
    other illnesses.
    
    Mary

RE: .10 (Mary)

    Jamie's account is substantially correct but incomplete. Incompleteness
    is necessary since the subject is quite complex.  For example, at least
    two independent mutations seem to be necessary to produce malignancy. 
    He also did not talk about the many transcription error correction
    mechanisms.  He didn't talk about how cancers spread through the body. 
    Nor about tumor vascularization.  And as you implied he simplified the
    description so that the immune system seemed helpless rather than
    simply having a tough time of it.

    By the way -- although much beloved by some psychologists and many
    popular writers, the evidence for cancer prone personalities is still
    very unclear.  One (though not the only) major problem is establishing
    that the personality characteristics seen with some (not overwhelming)
    regularity in cancer patients pre-dated the diagnosis of cancer -- in
    other words, its still very unclear as to whether the "cancer
    personality" is a cause or an effect of cancer.

				    Topher

    re: .11, Cancer mechanisms,
    
    Thanks for the interesting descriptions, Jamie and Topher.
    
>    other words, its still very unclear as to whether the "cancer
>    personality" is a cause or an effect of cancer.
    
    However, I believe that a stronger causal link link between
    'stress'-related bodily response and depleted immune system
    response has been recently substantiated.    
    
    How this transfers back to Cancer in particular
    is I think less well established.   
    
    							todd

RE: .12 (todd)
    
>    However, I believe that a stronger causal link link between
>    'stress'-related bodily response and depleted immune system
>    response has been recently substantiated.

    Yes that is true.  The medical field concerned with this area is called
    psychoimmunology.

>    How this transfers back to Cancer in particular
>    is I think less well established.

    Yes, or most other specific human diseases for which a possible stress
    relation has been claimed.

				    Topher

    re: in general
    
        Hell's bells!!  (To coin a phrase.)
    
        There is NO question that mental thoughts and emotional
    feelings affect our health (our bodies!)  None!  The only argument
    here is *how much* this is the case.  My contention is that
    it is 100% (ultimately---and I refer to my "blame the victim"
    versus total responsibility explanations.)
        Similarly, healing occurs anywhere on a continuum from zero
    to 100 based on the amount of spontaneous, self-initiated healing
    that the person takes that responsibility for.  
    Zero is where the person takes none, has zero input...up the scale
    we get to the point where the person requiring the healing allows 
    any old witch doctor or voodoo-ist or whatever to come along...on
    further just a little ways is where the person may or may not seek
    help but allows these people using drugs and scalpels to work their
    stuff (frequently called the AMA)...further along the scale are
    those who seek the use of preventative techniques and work with 
    diets, body workers, etc...further yet are those who are far enough
    along that they can tune in to harmonic vibrations of light or sound
    or some other source...and the furthest along the path is he/she who
    needs no outside interference at all...but relies on total 
    responsibility, spontaneous healing and health.
        People definitely have something to say about their own health.
    It is not up to the "gods" or some other source.  There is clear,
    empirical evidence of this.  If the *CAUSE* isn't apparent, means
    only that the cause is somewhere deeper and requires more 
    searching.  This is true regardless of the symptoms of non-health.
    
    re: Ginny
    
         It gets very much more difficult to see anything apparent in 
    certain cases, especially when the people are very young.  It is
    far easier to speculate and catalog older people.  I will say this,
    however, and that is that I have a hard enough time looking within
    myself trying to figure things out (suppressions or beliefs, etc.)
    without attempting to sort out some other person.  It is virtually
    impossible for most of us to look inside that person with that
    kind of certainty or depth.  Furthermore, understanding that this
    assessment comes not only of the sub-conscious mind but may very
    well be a manifestation coming from the un-conscious mind makes it
    very, very, very difficult, indeed.  There is no way to know that
    this lifetime has been karmically set up or not...and what types
    of focuses or lessons where in place to be accomplished.  Therefore,
    someone who is here but 3 years may very well have accomplished 
    whatever their "purpose" was.  OR, perhaps they cut this experience
    short to go on to something even more purposeful.  IT is too
    hard to call, Ginny, too hard to speculate with any authority.
    I think that it is enough to realize that conscious choices can
    be made to rectify or alter things sufficiently to make an entirely
    different reality occur.  If others can or cannot or do or do not
    is moot or irrelevant.  Taking responsibility is primarily about
    taking responsibility for oneself.  Master that, then move outwards...
    (or at least start with self.)
    
    Frederick
    

    Okay -- I see what you're saying.  However, it seems to me that
    tripping and falling out a window would be a lot more efficient than
    giving yourself cancer.

    I agree that my explanation was over simplistic, this was deliberate as
    I was attempting to write something that could be easily read and
    understood by everyone. 

    Yes Mary you are correct there are opportunistic cancers just as there
    are other opportunistic diseases.  But there also are cancers that will
    still grow in someone with a fully functional immune system. The immune
    system cannot distinguish between these cancer cells and the normal
    body cells.

    However the point that I tried to stress and seems to have been
    completely missed is there is no one disease called cancer. It is a
    collection of vastly diverse diseases that all respond differently to
    treatment. 
    
    People accept the statement that someone died from cancer. However if
    someone died from inflammation you would find it more difficult to
    believe. You would require the specific form of inflammation that did
    the killing, meningitis or pneumonia would make a more satisfactory
    diagnosis. Yet the range of diseases covered by the term cancer is as
    great as those covered by inflammation.

    Thus I doubt that there will ever be one single cure for cancer.

    Jamie.
                  

    Hi Fred,
    
    Do you know of anyone personally,who follows the Lazaris/YCYOR path who
    has ended up with a terminal desease? How succesful has their fight
    been against it, given their possible altered state of mind/reality?
    Have they published their conclusions? 
    
    Genuinely interested,
    
    -Brian
    

    re: .15 (Ginny)
    
         Yes, you are absolutely correct!  This is where it all gets 
    interesting...and this is where our own individual uniqueness comes
    into play.  If you can imagine a huge grid with lines in all 
    directions, you can get a sense of what this comes down to.  While
    it may be true that jumping out a window would be more elegant,
    lots and lots of other variables are "tugging" on this particular
    "line in the grid."  This line gets skewed, impacted, bounced around
    and intersects with other lines from other beliefs, attitudes, 
    feelings, etc. and therefore winds up at "point death" with a
    completely different coloration or composition than that of the
    person for whom the window would have sufficed.  
         It might be interesting to do a study of the people in a 
    tragedy to see how the ones who survived compare to the ones that
    didn't (e.g., the air crash in Iowa last year.)  It would be
    interesting to know the spiritual beliefs and life attitudes and
    "psychological profiles" of the two groups...
    
    re: 17 (Brian)
       
         I personally only met one person at the Lazaris workshops who
    had a terminal disease (that immediately comes to mind...I'll
    think about it and see what else pops up...)  That individual was
    the brother of a woman friend of mine, who started coming to 
    workshops about four years ago or so.  I met him, sat next to him
    one time, then noticed his absense.  I learned later that he had
    had AIDS and had died just two months or so after I last saw him
    (he didn't look unhealthy to me...this was about three years ago.) 
    I also talked to a very good friend of his sister's who told me that 
    Tom had simply given up.  He didn't want to fight it...he consciously
    (and he had personally talked to Lazaris about it) decided that he'd
    "cut his losses" in this lifetime and was willing to make another go 
    of it in another lifetime.  My understanding is that Tom died quickly,
    with dignity, with awareness of his choices...and that he died quite
    peacefully.  This, too, by the way, can be a viable alternative in 
    the "create your own reality" scenario.
         Whoops!  Just remembered another one.  Actually, this man
    *started* to listen to Lazaris *after* developing a severe brain
    tumor.  The tumors were so bad he was having seizures but refused
    to have surgery.  Dana, my girlfriend at the time, was so concerned
    for him that when she had the (valuable) opportunity to talk with
    Lazaris, she asked him for advice for this man.  Lazaris told her
    that he should get the surgery...that there would be time to work
    it out later.  He did, he has...he has totally changed his high
    tech life, moved to L.A., goes to Lazaris workshops and I don't know
    what else.  I cannot honestly tell you or anyone how much
    responsibility he has taken on or accepted.
    
         I have heard lots and lots of stories...almost every workshop
    I hear another...but I personally have not known "terminal disease"
    friends who attend and attend regularly.  Most of my friends that
    go to Lazaris workshops are intending to live to very advanced old
    age...and from appearances, are on the way.  My feeling is that most
    of us have processed so much that the likelihood of terminal diseases
    is far, far less likely.
    
    Frederick
    

    
    For a superb book written by a cancer surgeon on the relationship of
    mind, body and spirit, read:
    
        "Love, Medicine and Miracles", by Bernie Siegel
    
    Cindy

Re .0:

    >	Washington- Self-help tapes with soothing sounds and messages
    >for the subconscious mind have been snapped up by Americans, but
    >researchers say the recordings have no proven value.
    > ...
    >"We conclude that there is neither theoretical foundation nor
    >experimental evidence to support claims that subliminal self-help
    >audio tapes enhance human performance," the report said...
    > ...
    >"We find such claims unwarranted from both a theoretical and empirical
    >standppoint,"said Robert A. Bjork, chairman of the National Research
    >Council study committee on the issue and professor at the University of
    >California at Los Angeles. "Research on some tapes shows that their
    >embedded messages are below the level of subliminal perception."

I've selected three passages to make a point.  The first two passages talk about
subliminal tapes in general.  The third concludes that from an "emperical
standpoint" (meaning experimental) such claims are unwarranted; and, that
research on "some" tapes shows that the embedded messages are below the noise 
level.

Tapes, according to the story, clain to

    > ... cause people to lose weight, stop smoking, quit drinking, think
    >more creatively, make friends, reduce pain, improve vision, cure acne,
    >conquer fears, project astrally and become better bowlers.
 
Now did the experimenters really try to use the tapes for all of the above?
What was the sample size?  How many cases of acne did they try to cure?
Was the bowling self-help tape designed for candlepin or tenpin bowling?

I bring this up to make a point: it's dangerous to extrapolate results.
I wonder which ones that were at the level of subliminal perception were
singled out for further study.

Steve Kallis, Jr.

>    > ... cause people to lose weight, stop smoking, quit drinking, think
>    >more creatively, make friends, reduce pain, improve vision, cure acne,
>    >conquer fears, project astrally and become better bowlers.
> 
>Now did the experimenters really try to use the tapes for all of the above?

If a researcher needed to lose weight, stop smoking, quit drinking, think more
creatively, make friends, reduce pain, improve vision, cure acne *and* conquer
fears I'd say he was an *unlucky* guy!	:-)

								- JIM CAD*

    re: .21,
    
If a researcher needed to lose weight, stop smoking, quit drinking, think more
creatively, make friends, reduce pain, improve vision, cure acne *and* conquer
fears I'd say he was an *unlucky* guy!	:-)
    
    	Yes, in addition to the logical and statistical fallacies
    	mentioned by Steve, there is the question of the 'biased
    	sample.'
    
    	I'd say that if you took a group of pimpled phobic astigmatic obese 
    	alcoholic chain smoking antisocial dullards with chronic pain,
    	that the results are likely to vary from that of a group with
    	clear skin.
    							todd	

RE: -1

	:-))))))