Lucid Dreams: A Scientific Experimentation

Biology, Psychology, Parapsychology

Date : Feb. 2021

Source : Current Biology

A team of researchers has developed a methodology to experiment two-way communication with dreamers during their sleep. They used EEG (electroencephalography) and facial or ocular response to correlate with stimuli. Dreamers were able to hear simple arithmetic questions and to provide correct answers via a pre-established protocol (ocular or facial movements).
Once awaken, the experimenters were able to confirm they received the questions and transmit the answers, with some distortion in some cases. This experiment confirm the sleep learning phenomenon and open the door to a better understanding of the dream states.

Read more: Current Biology

Earth’s Tectonic Plates : One Billion Years Story

Earth Sciences

Date : Feb. 2021

Source : Phys.org

Earth scientists from every continent have collected and published data relative to tectonic plates movements. A compilation of all the data have enable the design of an illustration of the uninterrupted movement of the Earth’s tectonic plate over the past billion years. It shows that Antartica was once at the equator.

Integral Yoga Clinical Correlations

Philosophy, Health & Medicine

Date : Jan. 2018

Source : California Institute of Integral Studies

Sri Aurobindo Integral Yoga brings a new paradigm to “articulate a spiritually-informed approach to psychology and psychiatry”. This has now find its way and is becoming part of the mainstream of clinical practices. Integrative medicine, mindfullness-based stress reduction is now accepted and meditation has become a remedy for medical and mental health problems.
This article gives an overview of Sri Aurobindo Integral Yoga Psychology, with its relevance to clinical practice.

Read More : CIIS

Transpersonal Psychology : Moving Beyond Materialism

Philosophy, Psychology

Date : Jan. 2017

Source : California Institute of Integral Studies

Scientific Materialism paradigm is becoming more and more unbearable, and post-materialistic science is emerging. In a paper published in the International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, the author is debating the role of Transpersonal Psychology as a contributor to cultural transformation. The metaphysics of Science, Materialism, and Post-Materialism are analyzed and an evaluation of the contribution of Transpersonal Psychology is proposed.

Read More : CIIS

Shaivistic Samkhya Yoga in Balinese Tradition

Philosophy, Religion

Date : Dec. 2020

Source : Archipel Journal

Bali (Indonesia) textual traditions was built long time ago with a mixture of Hinduism which were brought more than one thousand years ago in the Island. It is a blending of Samkhya, Yoga, and Advaita Vedanta, three of the six Darshanas of Old India. This combination of dualist and monist approaches is synthesized in the Aji Sangkya, a recent compilation (1947). A new analysis of this tradition was published as a comparative study between the various Hinduisms on which it is based. It highlights the process of creation with the tattvas, which has a lot of parallels with the theosophical constitution of man.

Read More : Archipel Journal

The Metaphysics of the Four Yogas

Philosophy, Religion

Date : Oct. 2020

Source : MDPI – Religions

Swami Vivekananda claims that the four yogas – Karma Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Raja-Yoga and Jnana-Yoga – are independent and equally effective paths to Self-realization and liberation from the cycle of rebirth. Ultimately, there are as many yogas as many individuals beings seeking liberation. He said that “The ultimate goal of all mankind, the aim and the end of all religions, is but one-re-union with God, or, what amounts to the same, with the divinity which is every man’s true nature.” A recent paper discusses and explains this diversity leading to unity.

Read More : MDPI

Mindfullness : A Cognitive Therapy for Depression

Medicine, Psychology

Date : Oct. 2020

Source : ScienceDirect

Mindfullness-Based-Cognitive-Therapy (MBCT) are now well developed and well accepted in the medical communities. It has demonstrated its efficiency in psychatric domain, and is used in clinics and hospitals to reduce stress. A new study/experiment, using fMRI brain activation started to correlate the visible effects of this therapy with active zone of the brain.
MBCT relies on intensive mental training with focussed, sustained attention practices. This is equivalent to the first phases of meditation practices and the results of this study brings another demonstration of the relationship/influence the mental can have on the physical body.

Read More : ScienceDirect

Our Sun is an Alchemist

Physics, Space Sciences

Date : Nov. 2020

Source : AAAS

The fusion processes which occurs inside the core of any active star like our sun is the source of the generation of energy for all celestial bodies in its vicinity. This process involves the transformation of one element, starting with hydrogen, into heavier elements like helium, bore, carbon, oxygen,… The mechanism involves classical electromagnetism and quantum physics and it is confirmed by measurements from the Earth of the emitted particules called neutrinos. A recent experiment was able to measure for the first time such neutrinos coming from the sun’s second fusion process, called the CNO (Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen) Cycle.

Read More : AAAS

Life on Earth Brought by Comets?

Physics, Space Sciences

Date : Nov. 2020

Source : AAAS

In 2014, Chandra Wickramasinghe, from Buckingham Center for Astrobiology, UK, wrote a book – The Search for Our Cosmic Ancestry, following Fred Hoyle’s Theory of Cosmic Panspermia. He statistically demonstrated that life cannot have emerged on earth per chance, as the mainstream materialistic scientist’s world think, but was probably brought by cosmic “travelers” like comets, asteroids,…
In a recent space project – COSIMA (COmetary Secondary Ion Mass Analyser), hosted on the Rosetta spacecraft – discovered phosphorus and fluorine in solid dust particles collected from the inner coma of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen and sulphur were already reported in previous studies. Phosphorus is the last one of the CHNOPS-elements necessary for life to emerge.

Read More : AAAS

Dark Matter : A Ghost

Physics, Space Sciences

Date : Nov. 2020

Source : Science Magazine

Since the discovery of the anomalies of galaxies’ outer stars rotations (Fritz Zwicky, 1933’s), scientists have not been able to develop a satisfactory theory to explain the observed phenomenon. The concept of Dark Matter was introduced to account for the departure from general relativity model. Later, Dark Matter was used as a necessary component to validate the Big Bang theory, i.e. without Dark Matter, it is not possible for the initial sidereal bodies to form.
Dark Matter must pervade every galaxy. Yet, after decades of modeling and observations, not a single particle of Dark Matter has been spotted.
A new hypothesis surfaced, based on the observations of the distribution of galaxies from the CMB (Cosmic Microwave Background), which includes a gravity model which would be attractive at some length scale and repulsive at others.

Mme Blavatsky wrote (Isis Unveiled I. p.271, Ed. 1877) : “That there is no gravitation in the Newtonian sense, but only magnetic attraction and repulsion; that it is by their magnetism that the planets of the solar system have their motions regulated in their respective orbits by the still more powerful magnetism of the sun, not by their weight or gravitation.”

See the video : YouTube

Near-Death Experience

Health & Medicine, Parapsychology

Date : Nov. 2020

Source : YouTube

Another true story of a Near-Death experience in plain sight, during a cardiac surgery operation. The people around, including the surgeon, cannot but acknowledge the phenomenon which is raising so many questions to the materialistic scientists world, and which demands explanation. Such facts are piling up for some decades, well documented. The near-death process needs to be deciphered and the Traditions – The Egyptian Book of the Dead, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, the Theosophical teachings – have some clues to transmit there.

See the video : YouTube

Neural Network & Cosmic Web

Biology, Space Science

Date : Oct. 2020

Source : Frontiers in Physics

The network of neuronal cells in the human brain is seen as a complex multi-scale structure which can be modeled as a hierarchical network forming the physical and biological basis of cognition. The Universe, as far as we can observe and model it, looks like a web, the cosmic web. A new study analyzed the similarities between the two systems, and an astonishing conclusion emerged, showing that the order of magnitude of the quantity of information existing in the human mind neural network is identical to the quantity of information in the entire observable universe ( 1016).

The Secret Doctrine (Vol. I, p. 592 – 3rd Edition) states that : “Occult Philosophy has taught since the existence of human speech and language, on the principle of the immutable law of analogy, “as it is above, so it is below”, another of its axioms, that there is neither Spirit nor Matter, in reality, but only numberless aspects of the One ever-hidden Is, or Sat.”

Read more : Frontiers in Physics

The Esoteric Nature of Death

Religion, Esoterism

Date : Oct., 2020

Source : Roczniki Humanistyczne

Remaining in control of oneself at the moment of death and influencing one’s future incarnation was thoroughly experimented, analyzed and codified in Taoist literature. A comparative study with the Tibetan esoteric Buddhism revealed many similarities on near-death meditation practices and other practices like phowa (transfer of conscience) and tummo (inner heat generation). The whole process enables the practitioner to let out his/her immortal inner spirit at the moment of death of the body.

The Tibetan Book of the Dead, one of the most detailed and compelling descriptions of the after-death state in world literature, says in its conclusion to the chapter on The Great Liberation by Hearing, that : “By acting correctly, yogis with high realization will successfully effect the transference of consciousness at the moment of death, and, being spared the necessity of having to wander through the intermediate states, will attain liberation in an ascending and core-penetrating manner.

To read more : Roczniki Humanistyczne

The Universe has no beginning nor end

Space Sciences

Date : August, 2020

Source : Quantamagazine

Inflation versus cyclic universe debate is rising again among cosmologists. New computer simulations seems to challenge the Big Bang theory in favor of a cyclic universe, i.e. a universe which has no beginning, no end, and mainly no “singularity”, one of the weakest point of current theory where all known physical laws are supposed to collapse. But there is still a long road between simulation models and the physical world as we see it today.

Mme Blavatsky wrote (Secret Doctrine, Vol. I, p.594) : ” It is easy for an astronomer, if endowed with an imaginative faculty, to build a theory of the emergence of the universe out of chaos, by simply applying to it the principles of mechanics. But such a universe will always prove, with respect to its scientific human creators, a Frankenstein’s monster; it will lead him into endless perplexities. The application of the mechanical laws only can never carry the speculator beyond the objective world; nor will it unveil to men the origin and final destiny of Kosmos.”

Read more : Quantamagazine

Religion & Science through Indian Scientists’ Eyes

Religion

Date : July, 2020

Source : MDPI – Religions

Scientist community is often considered as anti-religion or at best atheist. Hundred of years in recent history left the feeling of a lack of religiosity in scientists’ approach and a strong tension between the two worlds. This overall vision came mainly from the Western world. A new study shows that such an attitude is influenced by national contexts, even when Science is operating as global field across national boundaries. This survey, based on interviews with Indian scientists, highlights a rising understanding of the differences between religion and spirituality, and it identifies that “those who believe Science and religion are not in conflict focus more on discipline and ethical guidelines”.

Mme Blavatsky (Secret Doctrine, Vol. I, p. 477 – Addenda to Book I) stated that : “So far as Science remains as “organized common sense”; so far as its inferences are drawn from accurate premise – its generalizations resting on purely inductive basis – every Theosophist and Occultist welcomes respectfully and with due admiration its contributions to the domain of cosmological laws. There can be no possible conflict between the teachings of the occult and so-called exact Science, where the conclusions of the latter are grounded on a substratum of unassailable fact.”

Read more : MDPI-Religions