Ispectrum magazine #04

ISPECTRUM
Issue 04/November-December 2013

MAGAZINE

The Blissful Brain:
Neuroscience and the Proof of the
Power of Meditation

The Music of the
Spheres
MONEY REDUCES
TRUST IN SMALL
GROUPS
Is there a psychological
explanation for the NDE?

CONTENTS
Features

20

17

03
The Blissful Brain:
Neuroscience and the
Proof of the Power of
Meditation
07 Exploring mystical experiences
elicited by meditation
12 Investigating the effect of meditation on measurable health outcomes

20
The Music of the Spheres
24 Universal Melody
26 The Romantic Dance between
the Sun and the Earth
27 What do Jupiter or Neptune
Sound Like?
28 Eternal Echoes
30
MONEY REDUCES TRUST IN
SMALL GROUPS
INTERVIEW WITH
GABRIELE CAMERA
34 What does money do today?
35 The cooperation is supportable
in small groups

3

37

30
1

37
explanation for the Near
Death Experience?
42 Psychological theories
and evidences

editorial
How was Halloween? I hope it was
creepy! Here at ISPECTRUM MAGAZINE
we made it through the tricks and treats
and survived the ghosts, witches and
zombies so we can offer a new edition.
This issue number #4 is full of featured
contents.
The neuroscientist Shanida Nataraja,
author of The Blissful Brain, has proven
that meditation has real benefits for
brain functioning. She explains to us
what effects’ meditating has on blood
pressure and depression, through the
latest insights of brain imaging studies.
Paco Gonzalez, Editor in Chief of Año/
Cero Magazine and author of hundreds
of articles mainly related with history
and archeology, shares with us the
amazing music of the spheres. He guides
us through the cosmos and introduces
us to the sounds of the planets, stars
and satellites, as NASA has proved that
Pythagoras was right in his intuitions.
Don’t miss our interview with Dr. Gabriel
Camera, from Chapman University,
who conducts research in the field of
Economy, and has observed that money
reduces trust drastically in small groups
You will also enjoy reading our expert
in psychology, Rob Hutchinson, who in
this issue, ponders if there is a psychological explanation for near death experiences (NDE).
Thank you very much for reading.
Feel free to share your comments and
opinions with us!

2

Mado Martinez
Editorial Director

Ispectrum
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johnsims@ispectrummagazine.com
Victoria Klein
Contributing Writers
Rob Hutchinson
Dr Shanida Nataraja
Paco González
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www.sxc.hu,
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The Blissful Brain:
Neuroscience and the Proof of the
Power of Meditation

by
Dr Shanida Nataraja
website

www.blissfulbrain.com

T

he human brain is a mindboggling feat of neural engineering; a biosupercomputer. Over
the last couple of decades, as
the experimental tools at our disposal have become more complex
and more successful at probing
the inner workings of the brain,
we have been able to define the
brain’s involvement in everyday
tasks, such as object recognition,
the expression of consciousness
through language, and even sexual
4

attraction. However, the less tangible aspects of what it means to
be human have largely resisted our
scientific scrutiny. Not only are we
are still trying to define the neural basis of human characteristics,
such as creativity and inspiration,
but we are also still far from understanding the exact nature of the
relationship between the brain and
consciousness.
Mystical or religious experiences have historically been seen to

lie within the domain of Religion,
or spirituality, and scientists have
shied away from trying to explain
why and how they occur and, in
many cases, have challenged their
validity. However, groundbreaking
research around the turn of the century revealed the brain’s involvement in mystical experiences, and
this has prompted a growing interest in investigating these phenomena in the confines of the laboratory.

Neurotheology reveals humans are hard-wired
to have mystical experiences

Mystical experiences can be defined
as short-lived experiences associated with a different mode of thinking and perceiving from that of our
everyday existence. Because of this,
mystical experiences defy explanation in terms that can be understood
by individuals who have not themselves had an experience. However,
generally speaking, they are associated with a sense of optimism and
unboundedness. The isolated ego,
“I”, is perceived to be both restricting
5

and a fabrication of our minds, and
this insight brings about an expansion of awareness in which the individual loses the sense of time and
space, and the boundary between
self and non-self. Although mystical
experiences can occur spontaneously, particularly during and after
a life crisis, regular meditation, as
practised within countless different
disciplines, can also increase the
frequency with which these experiences occur.

Mystical experiences were first
found to correlate with specific patterns of brain activity through the
study of patients with temporal lobe
epilepsy. The researcher Vilayanur
Ramachandran and his colleagues
investigated brain activity in these
patients, and found that many experienced bursts of activity in their
temporal lobe, referred to as microseizures. Patients who frequently
reported mystical experiences, or
who were known to express religious fanaticism, were more likely
to have these microseizures than
those that did not [1].

Taking this research one step further,
Michael Persinger designed a device
that would become popularly known
as the “God machine”. This simple
device – a series of small electromagnets attached to a motorcycle
helmet – delivers a weak electromagnetic field that can be used to
selectively activate distinct regions
of the brain. Persinger reported that
stimulation of the temporal lobe
elicited a mystical experience in
about 80% of subjects; stimulation
of the right temporal lobe tended to
elicit more pleasurable experiences
than stimulation of the left temporal
lobe.
6

Although some subjects failed to
have an experience when wearing
the helmet – most notably Richard
Dawkins, the self-proclaimed atheist – these observations suggest
that the large majority of subjects
tested had the innate neural wiring
necessary for them to have a mystical experience. This led Persinger
to suggest that an individual’s propensity to have mystical experiences depends on the lability of
their temporal lobe (i.e. how prone
it is to change). Individuals with a
high lability were seen to be more
likely to have microseizures, and

Dr. Persinger

therefore more likely to
have mystical experiences. Persinger’s early
results have been confirmed in a more recent
analysis of more than
400 additional subjects
[2].

For some, this research
provided the proof that
mystical experiences,
and even the experience of God, were the
result of aberrant neural circuitry, an artefact of brain function.
However, this view is
flawed. Our brains are
designed to receive
information about our
experiences, whether
that be the experience
of biting into an apple
or a mystical experience. Hypothetically,
if we were capable of
experimentally stimulating the specific areas
of the brain involved
in the perception of
an apple, the subject
would likely report that
they had experienced

an apple. The perceived
apple would not be
real; it would be, quite
rightly, an artefact of
brain function. Does
the replication
of
the
neural
impression of an
apple in
the laboratory
call into
question
whether
apples
actually exist in our
world? Similarly, the
observation that mystical experiences can
be artificially evoked
merely reveals that
the neural circuitry of
the human brain has
evolved to allow it to
process the full range
of experiences, including mystical experiences. Like a radio receives
and transmits music,
our brain receives information about all of our
experiences, includ7

ing mystical experiences, and, in doing
so, gives rise to our
conscious awareness
of these experiences.

This research therefore
merely suggests that
most of us possess the
innate neural circuitry,
or hard-wiring, allowing us to perceive and
make sense of mystical
experiences when they
occur.

Exploring mystical experiences
elicited by meditation
The investigation of
artificially evoked brain
events is clearly far
from ideal. This fact led
the researchers Andrew
Newberg and Eugene
d’Aquili to attempt to
study mystical experiences elicited by meditation in the laboratory.
Experienced Buddhist

dent or peak moment
of meditation – they
were asked to pull on
a string. Radioactive
tracer was then injected into the meditator,
through an in-dwelling
catheter, and the binding of this tracer in the
brain visualised using
SPECT (single photon
emission computed tomography).
Active regions of
the brain have
a greater blood
supply and can
therefore
be
expected to bind
more
of
the
radioactive tracer. In this manner, information
about the activity
in the meditator’s brain
at this transcendent
moment was captured
and visualised.

meditators were asked to
meditate and, when they
felt they were accessing an altered or mystical state of awareness
From these pivotal
– sometimes referred
to as the transcen- experiments, Newberg
8

and d’Aquili demonstrated that meditation
triggered two important changes in brain
activity. Firstly, there is
an increase in activity
in the frontal cortex,
in the area of the brain
known to be involved
in sustained attention –
referred to as the attention association cortex.
Increased activity in
this association cortex leads to decreased
activity in the surrounding regions of the brain
that are responsible
for complex cognitive
processing. This is the
consequence of innate
circuitry that filters out
redundant information
in order to maintain
sustained attention in
the face of continual
distractions. The more
attention is held on a
single focus, the easier it becomes to sustain that attention. The

Newberg and d’Aquili demonkey feature of this
strated that meditation triggered
first step is a shift
two important changes in brain
in brain activity
activity
from the left to the
right hemisphere,
as attention is predominately a right-hemisphere
results
function. The implications of this
confirm
that
are discussed below. Secondly, the
sustained attention elicits defined
increase in activity in the frontal
changes in the activity of the froncortex drives a decrease in activity
tal cortex that trigger the unfolding
in the parietal cortex. This houses
of the meditative experience. Many
two important association cortices;
meditators also report a dissolvthe orientation association cortex
ing of the boundary between self
and the verbal-conceptual cortex.
and non-self and an expansion of
The former gives rise to our sense
awareness that brings a sense of
of orientation in space and time,
unboundedness and transcendence.
and contains the neural circuitry
This so-called mystical experience
that defines the boundary between
can also be understood in terms of
self and non-self, whereas the latter
changes in brain activity, with mediconfers the ability to relay our expetation switching off the circuitry in
rience in words. A decrease in activthe parietal lobe involved in genity in the parietal cortex therefore
erating our perception of time and
leads to a decreased awareness of
space, and our position within it, as
space and time, as well as an inabilwell as the self/non-self boundary.
ity to describe the experience using
Furthermore, the indescribability of
language [3].
mystical experiences can also be
explained by the reduced activity in
the parietal lobe, as this part of the
The findings of this research therefore
brain also houses the neural circuitmirror our current subjective underry that confers the ability to express
standing of the mystical experiencour experiences in language.
es elicited by meditation. Sustained
attention is pivotal to all types of
meditation, and these experimental
9

Meditation as a neural process designed to
unlock the innate potential of our brains

In the discussion above, we
saw that meditation, through
sustained attention, elicits a
switch between left and righthemisphere activity. This
switch is a crucial component
of the process leading to the
mystical state of awareness
often experienced as a result of
meditation. In order to understand
the implications of this, it is important to first examine the functions
of the two hemispheres. Our understanding of the different roles of the
two hemispheres largely stems from
split-brain surgeries performed in
the 1960s in patients suffering from
particularly severe epilepsy. By severing the connections between the
two hemispheres, the two sides of
the brain can be essentially isolated
from each other. Following one of
these surgeries, a split-brain patient
was blindfolded and given a toothbrush to hold in their left hand.
As the right hemisphere controls
the left-hand side of the body, the
toothbrush was sensed by the right
hemisphere. The patient was there10

fore
able
to mime
what
a toothbrush
would be used for (i.e. they understood the toothbrush’s purpose);
however, they were unable to name
the object. Both the term “toothbrush” and the ability to vocalise this
term lie within the left hemisphere.
Observations in these split-brain
patients prompted the neuroscientists, Jerre Levy and the now Nobel
prize winning Roger Sperry, to suggest that the two hemispheres have
inbuilt, qualitatively different, and
mutually antagonist modes of cognitive processing [4].

The left hemisphere houses the
neural circuitry that mediates verbal and written language, as well as
being home to many of the cognitive processors that give rise to the
intellectual functioning of the human
mind (i.e. our ego). Accordingly, the
left hemisphere is often considered
to be the dominant hemisphere, and
many of us spend much of our exis-

tence cultivating and using the leftbrain mode of cognitive processing. During meditation, the practitioner accesses the functioning of
the right hemisphere, and therefore
can gain insight from the rightbrained mode of cognitive processing. Experiments suggest that the
right hemisphere captures a much
more truthful representation of an
experience. Our left hemisphere has
a tendency to filter our experiences
so that they fit into our established
11

perception of ourselves and the
world. Experiences that fit our world
view and “boost our ego” are captured, whereas those that challenge
our world view and “undermine our
ego” are ignored. The right hemisphere, on the other hand, captures
the whole experience and therefore,
during meditation, when the practitioner has access to the right hemisphere, often long-forgotten memories can surface in full Technicolor or
solutions to unsolved problems or
dilemmas can emerge.
Meditation therefore provides the
practitioner with a method through
which to switch between the two
modes of thinking and perceiving
conferred by the two hemispheres.
We have seen that the expansion
of awareness often reported during mystical experiences elicited by
meditation can be partially explained
by decreased activity in the neural
circuitry conferring our sense of
orientation in space–time, as well
as our self/non-self boundary. This
expansion of awareness can also,
however, be partially explained by
the fact that meditation triggers a
shift from left-hemisphere activity
to right-hemisphere activity, and
thus a shift towards a more holistic,
abstract mode of cognitive processing that reveals the interrelatedness

of all things, as well as the restrictions of the ego-centred mode of
cognitive processing.

In the late 1970s, Maxwell Cade, a
prominent psychophysiologist, proposed that there were five different levels of consciousness (dreaming sleep; hypnogogic/hypnopompic
[i.e. between waking and dreaming]; everyday waking; meditative; and lucid awareness), and
that these different levels of consciousness correlate with specific
patterns of electrical brain activity.
During meditation – considered by
Cade to elicit a higher level of consciousness than the normal, waking consciousness (equated to the
aforementioned ‘mystical’ or ‘meditative’ state of awareness) there is
a prominence of alpha brain waves,
associated with relaxed wakefulness, and theta brain waves, associated with the creative subconscious
mind.

Unsurprisingly perhaps, there is
also a decrease in the beta brain
waves that are associated with
active thought. The highest level of
consciousness – referred to as lucid
12

awareness or the “awakened mind”
state – involves comparable levels
of alpha and theta brain waves to
the meditative level of consciousness, but also includes beta brain
waves, indicating a return of higher
cognitive functions. Unlike the beta
brain waves seen during the everyday waking level of consciousness,
which occur predominantly in the
left hemisphere, the beta brain
waves seen in the “awakened mind”
level of consciousness are balanced
across the two hemisphere. Optimal
brain functioning, and indeed higher
states of consciousness, are thus
seen to stem from balanced left and
right-hemisphere cognitive functioning [5].

In our left-hemisphere
dominated society, in
which achieving and
succeeding are valued
over being, meditation offers us a method
of switching into the
right-hemisphere mode
of thinking, thereby re-addressing this
imbalance. Meditation
also elicits brain wave
changes
associated
with higher states of
consciousness than our
everyday, waking state,
and therefore provides
the key to unlocking the
innate potential of our
brains. By observing the
changes in brain activ-

ity underlying some of
the main features of
mystical experiences
elicited through meditation, we have therefore not only gained
a better understanding
of the involvement of
the brain in conveying mystical experiences and eliciting mystical states of awareness, but we have also
gained a more complete picture of the role
that meditation plays in
eliciting these changes
in brain activity, and
indeed, the role it plays
in optimising the performance of our brains.

Investigating the effect of meditation on
measurable health outcomes
The growing body of
evidence supporting
the role of meditation
in triggering mystical
experiences or mystical
states of awareness,
together with the evolv-

ing view of meditation
as a potential method of optimising brain
performance,
have
prompted researchers
to explore the effects
of meditation on the
13

health and well-being
of the practitioner. This
research reveals that
meditation may play
an important role in
modern healthcare.

Mindfulness-based
stress reduction (MBSR)
is a technique developed
by Jon Kabat-Zinn for
use in patients, including those with chronic
pain, depression, cancer, heart disease and
anxiety. Based on the
Buddhist practice of
mindfulness, but essentially independent of
any esoteric tradition,

MBSR trains the practitioner to become more
aware of their momentto-moment thoughts.
Rather than modifying
these thoughts, practitioners are taught to
modify their attitude to
these thoughts. MSBR
also involves the practice of seated meditation, together with a
body-scan relaxation
technique and some
yoga postures. A number of studies have
shown that MBSR has
a measurable impact
on the well-being of
patients suffering from
chronic pain. In one of
these studies, conducted by Kabat-Zinn, more
than 65% of patient
who had failed more
conventional
methods of pain management responded to a
10-week programme
of
MBSR.
Patients
not only reported an
improvement in their
level of pain, but also
an improvement in
the mood disturbances
14

precipitated by chronic
pain [6].
Furthermore, in cancer patients, particularly those with hormone-dependent cancers such as breast and
prostate cancer, MBSR
can lead to significant
improvements in quality of life. In a study
conducted by Michael
Speca and colleagues,
MBSR was shown to
elicit a 65% improvement in mood and a
35% improvement in
symptoms of stress [7].
In a recent meta-analysis of studies of MBSR,
Paul Grossman and colleagues concluded that
MBSR was an effective
stress-reduction method that was associated
with clear benefits in
terms of both overall
health and the ability
of patients to cope with
their illness. The size
of the effect seen is
dependent on both the
frequency and duration
of practise [8].

Meditation’s impact on
stress underlies many
of its proven physical health benefits. In
some patients, regular meditation is associated with a reduced
risk of cardiovascular disease, as well
as decreases in blood
pressure, both of which
are likely to result from
better stress management.
Regular meditation also
confers psychological
benefits, such as reducing anxiety and depression, improving coping
mechanisms (both with
disease and chronic
pain), and addressing
addictive behavior ,
all of which are again,
at least in part, manifestations of stress.
In a world in which
the levels of stress
appear to be continually escalating, meditation appears to offer
a therapeutic antidote
that can, at least to a
certain degree, lessen
the impact of stress

meditation with scepticism.
This is largely the result
of the failure of meditation to demonstrate
statistically significant
Despite the growing results in large-scale
body of evidence sup- meta-analyses.
porting the effect of In 2007, the authors of a
meditation on measur- technology assessment
able health outcomes, based on research conorthodox medicine still ducted by the University
largely
approaches of Alberta Evidenceand stress-related disease on both the individual and our healthcare systems.

15

based Practice Center
(EPC) under contract
to the Agency for
Healthcare Research
and Quality (AHRQ)
stated that “firm conclusions on the effects
of meditation practices
in healthcare cannot
be drawn based on the
available evidence”. As
acknowledged by the
authors, this negative
finding results from
the low quality of the
included studies and
the diversity of types
of meditation studied,
methodology used and

enrolled patient populations [9].

This example highlights a number of
important
issues.
Firstly, there is a clear
need to standardise
the methodology used
when studying meditation and to, wherever possible, conduct
randomised controlled
trials.
Furthermore,
researchers
studying meditation should
strive to adhere to
the CONSORT guide16

lines for trial reporting to ensure that their
data are viewed in the
most favourable light.
Secondly, it remains
questionable whether
studies of meditation
should be forced to
meet the rigorous standards devised for clinical trials of investigational drugs. Meditation
is not a substitute for
conventional treatment
approaches; it is an
alternative therapy that
can, in some patients,
provide added benefit. Whereas failure
of an antihypertensive
could lead to considerable patient morbidity
and mortality, failure of
meditation to improve
a patient’s clinical situation has few drawbacks.

The value of meditation as a healthcare
intervention is perhaps
best illustrated by the
fact that, at an increasing number of medical

institutions in the US and Europe, struggling to cope with the evertraining courses in meditaexpanding pool of patients,
tion are being offered
this trend suggests that
to a diverse range
meditation can play
of patients. More
a key role in effecthan
16,000
tive patient manpatients have
agement,
and
training courses in
undergone
may well offer
meditation are being
MBSR
traina much-needed
offered to a diverse
ing
at
the
solution to the
range of patients
Massachusetts
growing healthMedical School,
care crisis in the
Center
for
West.
Mindfulness, since
it was founded in
1995, and the feedback from healthcare professionals and patients involved is overwhelmingly positive. Furthermore,
Defining a role for
at the MD Anderson Cancer Center
meditation in our
in Houston, Texas, patients are now
routinely offered a variety of supmodern, everyday lives
port programmes, including courses in meditation, to help them to
better deal with their illness and
In the clinical setting, meditaits consequences. In the UK, the tion can undoubtedly alleviate some
Centre for Mindfulness Research of the burden currently placed on
and Practice at Bangor University our healthcare systems, as well as
offers training courses in mindful- empowering the individual patient
ness to both healthcare profession- to play a pivotal role in the manageals and patients, and strives to pro- ment of their condition. Meditation’s
mote the use of mindfulness in the adoption into mainstream society,
clinical setting within the National however, requires another subHealth Service (NHS). In a climate stantial shift in thinking. Our fastin which our healthcare systems are paced, adrenaline-filled lives draw
17

and their motivation to instigate
lifestyle changes that promote good
health and well-being.

our attention away from our health
and well-being, and often promote
unhealthy lifestyles. Western medicine is largely responsive rather
than preventive; by the time most
individuals seek medical help, they
have established disease requiring
active intervention. There are obvious benefits of diagnosing disease in
its early stages, or even preventing
it before it can develop. The achievement of this, however, depends on
both the individual’s awareness of
their state of health and well-being
18

Meditation offers a potential strategy through which an individual can
cultivate and maintain a state of
good health and well-being. Longterm stress can have damaging
effects on the body long before these
effects are manifest as poor health
or disease. Not only does meditation reduce stress, but it may also
prevent or delay the onset of stressrelated diseases, as well as reducing
risk prone behaviour triggered by
stress, such as smoking and the use
of recreational drugs. Furthermore,

there is an abundance
of anecdotal evidence
suggesting that meditation can be associated with the following
subjective benefits: a
boost in energy levels
and a decreased need
for sleep; an increase
in productivity and
creativity; increased
self-acceptance, which
often translates into an
increased acceptance of
other people and thus
improved interpersonal
relationships; a greater ability to express
emotions; fewer bouts
of irritability and impatience, or emotional
or behavioural outbursts; an improved
and expanded sense of
identity; and a greater

understanding of which
situations,
individuals and behaviour are
constructive and which
are destructive. This
evidence provides a
strong rationale for the
inclusion of meditation
in our everyday lives.
In addition to conferring health benefits,
the insights gained for
our investigations into
the effects of meditation on the brain
reveal that meditation
is also an important
tool that allows us to
access higher levels of
consciousness. These
higher levels of consciousness are associated with optimised
brain functioning, and
their attainment is
19

conducive to personal
growth. Through meditation, it is possible
to harness the innate
power of both our left
and right hemispheres,
and reap the benefits
afforded by using the
complementary modes
of cognitive processing offered by them.
Meditation, and the
mystical states associated with meditation,
appear to be part and
parcel of what it means
to be human, and regular practice promises to allow us to fulfil
more of our potential,
both as individuals and
a society as a whole.
Dr Shanida Nataraja
is the author of The
Blissful Brain: Proof of
the Power of Meditation
(Gaia, £7.99). For more
information,
please
see:
www.blissfulbrain.com

Dr Shanida Nataraja has a BSc (First Class
Hons) in Human Science and Neuroscience
and a PhD in Neurophysiology, both from
University College London. Her research
thesis focused on learning and memory
and she continued researching in this
field, holding a post-doctoral research
position at the Johns Hopkins School of
Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland. After
five-years in research, Shanida abandoned the isolation of the laboratory
for the relative comforts of a career
in medical communications. Shanida is
currently Scientific Director at a medical

education agency
producing materials
in the field of neurology, cardiology,
oncology, psychiatry
and women’s health.
Shanida has many
years of experience
in both Christian
mantra meditation and Buddhist mindfulness meditation, and has received
basic instruction in a variety of other
contemplative practices, including Tai
Chi, Chi Gung and Iyengar yoga.

References:

[6] Kabat-Zinn, J. An outpatient program in behav-

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Harper Perennial, 1999; Chapter 9.

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[2] St-Pierre LS, Persinger MA. Experimental facilita-

Psychiatry, 1982: 4(1):33–47.

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[7] Speca, M, Carlson, LE, Goodey, E, Angen, M.

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A randomized, wait-list controlled clinical trial: the

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[8] Grossman, P, Niemann, L, Schmidt, S, Walach,

[4] Sperry RW. Hemispheric specialization of men-

H. Mindfulness-based stress reduction and health

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States of Consciousness & Human Potentialities,

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[9] University of Alberta Evidence-based Practice

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[5] Cade, M, Coxhead, N. The Awakened Mind: bio-

Evidence Report/Technology Assessment Number 155:

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AHRQ Publication No. 07-E010, June 2007.

20

The Music of the Spheres

by
Paco González
website
www.facebook.com/paco.gonza-

The Music of the
Spheres

In 2004, a NASA satellite discovered that
the interaction between the Sun’s solar
winds and the atmosphere of its dependable planets’ produces harmonic vibrations which, in turn, create incredible
sounds.
Does this mean Pythagoras was right?

21

A

Scientist involved with the
NASA satellite remarked
that our Sun behaves like a musical
instrument. NASA’s evidence suggests that the Sun is expelling harmonic vibrations caused by oscillations on its surface, acting in the
same manner as an internal membrane of a speaker.

By contrast however, some quite
stunning NASA images from 2009
show an impressive nebula, the
form of which looks like a Butterfly.
The picture was taken by the Hubble
Telescope and today has become
one of the most beautiful visual
examples of our living Universe.

From where did Pythagoras gain
this knowledge? Was there another
before him that passed the information on? Or did he ordain this
information all on his own? Indeed,
if he did learn of the phenomena by
himself, how was he able to grasp
something that we today have only
discovered through the means of
precise technology in the early
21st Century?

The Cosmos is alive. Both sounds
and images offer us an insight into
a harmonic, moving cosmos image.
Our most advanced, 21st Century
technology, it would seem, is now
beginning to confirm the ancestral
legacy that was first mooted and
stoically defended and explained
by Pythagoras, Kepler, Kircher and
many others, hundreds of years
ago.

Pythagoras the
Alien?
One of the most mysterious voices in world history, Pythagoras is
understood to be the first name
that records knowledge of the music
of the spheres. We do not have
any original manuscripts by him
though, and very little is known
about his life.

Pythagoras
Perhaps the answer lies with the
contemporary writers of the time;
their disciples and the neo-Platonists. Maybe their area of knowledge and expertise was closer to
22

Pythagoras’s own than
we ever have been –
not only in the chronological sense but in a
literal sense.
Our new findings
mean things we have
always thought to be
invented
fantasies
and myths could be
revisited through new
eyes. Why? Because
Pythagoras was often
regarded as a God by

his peers. Some of them
wrote that even Apollo
could have been his
Father, a view derived
from a consensus that
Pythagoras
literally
‘gleamed’ with a supernatural glow. A brightness. Some scholars
even purport that he
had a golden thigh. An
extraterrestrial prosthesis perhaps?

23

It was said also, that
Arabis once visited
him aboard ‘a golden
arrow’. An extraterrestrial visit?
Almost certainly the
strangest occurrence(s)
supporting the theory
is that Pythagoras was
continually reported
to be seen in numerous different places at
the same time. This is
known in paranormal

History Repeating

terms as bilocation or
multilocation.
Was Pythagoras an
alien? And if he was
– presumably a being
endowed with precious
wisdom and knowledge
– why did he travel
to so many different
locations in order to
study under different
‘Masters’?

It would not be
the first case in
history of a being
seemingly beyond
that of mere mortals. Jesus Christ,
of course, was
born of a Human
but
possessed
inner abilities far
beyond that of
man. But again, it
is believed that he
– like Pythagoras –
studied under different ‘Masters’, if we
refer to the Apocryphal
Gospels.
It is believed that many
of the potential learning’s received by these
anomalies
descend
from ancient Egypt. A
place that could hold
an
indecipherable
link between the two
beings, and is it any
coincidence then, that
Egypt is the cradle of
one of the most signifi24

cant and ancient civilisations of world history? The secrets that lie
in the origin and construction of the colossal Pyramids are even
now a suggestive trace
of an unveiled mystery.
How did the ancient
Egyptians
manage
to build such perfect
monuments with presumably no technology
whatsoever? The question has been discussed
at length, but there
is no definitive answer.
However one of the
most popular beliefs is
that the Pyramids were
built with the aid of
extraterrestrials. How
else could they achieve
something that is so
far beyond the reaches
of modern man? That
is, of course, if they
really did build them.

Universal Melody
Pythagoras was perceptive
enough to study the musical
sounds and their relationship with Mathematics. He
maintained that the orbit
of the ‘heavenly bodies’ –
a term given to all matter
of Space: Planets; Stars;
Asteroids etc - and their
accompanying sounds were in
harmony with each other. The
result was a beautiful, perpetual
universal melody.

Plato
described
in ‘Timeus’
how
the
Demiurgus
forged the
world dividing the main
‘substance’ in
harmonic intervals. His conclusion,
through
Epinomis’s
voice, was that ‘the heavenly bodies play the best of the songs’, and
if we read a little further…

Iamblichus wrote of Pythagoras in
his book entitled ‘Protepticus’:

‘This harmony produces a music
much more beautiful and intense
than the worldly music’.

‘He used a divine, ineffable and
undecipherable power. That is how
he could concentrate and listen
to the sublime symphony of the
spheres. He was able to understand the universal harmony and
the concert of the spheres and the
Heavenly bodies’.

Whether Pythagoras was the first
to be aware of this Interstellar
Orchestra or not, it would seem
that the comparison between the
Cosmos and a huge musical instrument has been assumed from the
Middle Ages right through to the
present day.

So it seems that Iamblichus attributed to Pythagoras a special power
– a divine power – one that was
indicipherable. He is held as someone with skills far beyond our own.
25

Kepler

Singing From the Same
Hymn Sheet?
Kepler was a famous Mathematician
and Astronomer. He attributed a
musical note to each planet and
affirmed that the angular speeds
of each heavenly body produced
sounds. According to Kepler, the
sounds would be of a higher pitch if
the movements were faster. In his
own words:
‘The Heavenly movement is a continuous song for several voices.
These voices can only be perceived
by intellect, not the hearing. This
music leaves its trace in the flow of
the time’.
The British Alchemist Robert Fludd
was very interested in the correspondence between the planets; the different parts of the
26

human body; Angels and the music
itself. He thought that the Universe
was a ‘monochord’ universe where
the ten melodic ranges evoked by
Pythagoras’s theorem translated
the harmony of the creation.
The ‘gene in hermetic philosophy’,
Athansius Kircher, is well known for
his famous maxim:
‘Heaven above, Heaven below;
Stars above, Stars below; all that
is above thus below’.
He wrote an illustrated book titled
‘Musurgia Universalis’ where he
explained music as a reflection of
mathematics and the essential proportions of creation.
If we look back we find many
more traces, many famous names,
and many sages who recalled the
ancient legacy of Pythagoras, such
as Plinius; Boecius; Ptolomeus;
Newton; Pico Della Mirandola; Jean
Phillipe Rameau etc… It seems
that today – centuries after these
philosophers, our contemporary
Science is finally converging with
these fascinating theories.

The Romantic Dance between the
Sun and the Earth
A satellite called
‘Transition
Region
and Coronal Explorer’
(NASA) discovered that
the Sun sounds and
behaves like a musical
instrument. This sophisticated and ultraviolet
observatory studies the
solar corona. The solar
explosions
generate
Plasma rings or electrified gas that causes
sound waves. These are

propagated from arc to bombs, the solar explosions send the acoustic
arc:
sounds through these
‘The sound is very simi- ‘arcs’ at dozens of kilolar to the one you obtain metres per second:
while plucking the guitar’, said Robert von Jay- ‘We can now say that
are
acoustic
Siebenburgen – Head these
of the Solar Physics waves and these waves
and Research Centre, are excited by exploin a statement for BBC sions at the foot points
Television. Releasing of these loops’, said the
the equivalent energy Mathematician Youra
of millions of Hydrogen Taroyan of the University
27

of Sheffield in the UK, odies, since these ultrain an edition of New sounds are played out
in a 100 milihertz freScientist Magazine.
quency every ten secOne of the most intrigu- onds.
ing aspects of these solar
sounds is that despite At NASA, a multidisciHuman Beings not being plinary team from the
able to hear them (they ‘Ulysses’ mission has
are of a frequency 300 discovered that these
times lower than those pulses from our Solar
we can hear); they pro- Star can be detected
duce peculiar effects on in Submarine cables,
our planet, causing it seismographs etc. More
to vibrate in sympathy fascinating still are the
discoveries of the inveswith the frequencies.
tigators David Thomson
In this context, we can and Louis Lanzerotti
propose that the Solar from the Hiscale proSystem is a cosmic cho- gram in the Ulysses
rus with equilibrated and mission. They concluded that different sounds
harmonic
generated by the Sun
melnot only reach
our planet; but
the earth also
generates
rigid movethe Sun sounds and
ments
in
behaves like a musical
response
instrument
to the ultrasounds,
bringing
on a kind of
romantic cosmic
28

dance. These events
however do not confine
themselves to just our
Star…

What do Jupiter
or Neptune
Sound Like?
Professor Donald W Kurtz
from the Astrophysics
Centre at the University
of
Lancashire
(UK)
states:
‘All the Stars in our
Galaxy produce harmonic vibrations producing a kind of celestial melody’.
NASA has promoted
some laboratory experiments in order to synthesize the sonic oscillations and they obtained
surprising results. By
accelerating the sounds
three or eight times,
you would be able to say

that you are hearing the waves
of the ocean; such is the similarity, or the song of whales
and dolphins. It depends of
course on the intensity of each
electromagnetic field as well as
the grade of manipulation. And,
of course, the imagination.
We highly recommend our readers make a search on the internet
so they can hear these amazing
sounds.

Jupiter

Donald A. Gurnett is Professor
of Physics and Astronomy at the
University of IOWA (USA) and he is
one of the pioneers in the classification of the sounds of the Universe.
This scientist’s investigations have
actually inspired musicians to
introduce these peculiar signature
sounds
into
their
compositions.

Eternal Echoes
Pythagoras may have been the first
to become aware of the phenomenon. But who was the first to have
the privilege of actually ‘listening’ to
the music of the spheres? We have
to travel back to the 1930’s, when
the young physicist Karl Jansky,
from Bell’s Laboratories, discovered that some radio waves generated static interferences that came
from the centre of the Milky Way.
With merely an old radio-receptor
and an antenna assembled on his
Ford T chassis, he was the first
man able to audibly distinguish the
music of the stars.

Neptune
29

Ultimately, whatever the origin,
we can see that this musical structure in the Cosmos is not limited to
the ‘Pythagorean School’ of knowledge, nor does the knowledge of it
end with Kepler. Whether through
ancient wisdom or contemporary
science, our models for explaining
the nature of the Universe continue
to overlap; very wide of a rigid or
exclusive solution for the world.
Karl Jansky

The Milky Way,NASA
30

MONEY REDUCES TRUST IN
SMALL GROUPS

by
Mado Martinez
website
www.madomartinez.com

INTERVIEW WITH
GABRIELE CAMERA

G

abriele Camera, Fullbright Scholar,
holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the
University of Iowa (USA) and is currently Research Profesor of Economics and
Finance, in the Economic Science Institute
at Chapman University in California. He

31

has held previous
positions at Purdue
University (USA),
the University of Iowa (USA), and the
University of Basel (Switzerland).

M.M. Are we more selfish when money is involved?

G.C.
I want to get the words
straight and correct you
a little bit in terms of
language. In economics,
selfishness and altruism
are very precise concepts, so I prefer not
to use those types of
words, though in com-

mon language you can
use them. Basically individuals tend to be cooperative with others, that
is, they tend to sustain
personal costs to help
others when money is
not involved, and as
soon as money gets

involved, this tendency
to try to cooperate with
others, over time, is
greatly diminished. So if
you want to call it selfishness you can think of
it in that way it’s more
self-interested.

M.M. It’s very interesting what you’re saying because in Spain (where I
come from), people are suffering a very big economic recession at the
moment, but at the same time there is much growth of solidarity. Do you
think that can be related to your theory?

G.C.
Definitely. The point
here, and the precedence here, is that we
did a laboratory experiment, so all you can
get out of the data is
some intuition for how
behavior might be rep-

licated outside the lab
so it gives us a point,
a way to think about
behaviors in society, but
you’re right. So what we
found in the experiment
is that people were able
successfully, to a certain
32

extent, but not fully to a
certain extent they were
successful, at dispelling
social norms of mutual
support, cooperation,
as you say, or reciprocity, in a certain sense,
when there was no way

to obtain high pay-offs
otherwise, when there
was nothing they could
exchange for a favor,
or for help. Whereas
when we introduced this
object that had no cash
value, it had no reference to outside currencies, basically it was
just a symbolic object,
people started to be
in a sense, and I use
quotes around these

words ‘greedy’ in the
sense and they would
not help others unless
they received compensation. That is they
switched behavior from
norms of mutual support
to norms of exchange,
in which I want to be
compensated immediately for some benefit
that I provide to you.
So it is reasonable to
believe that in situa-

33

tions in which jobs are
lost, as is the current
situation in Spain and
in many other countries,
unfortunately,
when people do not
have access to liquidity, to money to pay for
the things they need, it
is natural for groups of
people to come together and rely on norms of
mutual support.

M.M. I guess you have tried to compare this information with colleagues
in other fields like psychology, sociology, etc. Why is money able to change
the way we behave?

G.C.
Well, so far we have
some hypotheses that
have to be tested, of
course, in order to give
at least an initial intuition, an initial answer,
but it’s not proof from
an experiment, it provides an intuition, and
it has to be replicated many times to have
some sort of more scientific validity, but the
idea is this: consider
the many differences
among the individuals in a large group of
people, individuals that
do not know exactly
each other’s behavior,
they may not help each
other, as it is in modern
societies, large societies. In these types of
societies, if you want to
create norms of mutual support, you really
have to rely quite a bit

on the others, but if you
help someone today,
or if you’re given help,
then someone else will
help you in the future,
so there is this give and
take.

that if there is someone who does not help,
as everyone else does,
the entire group has to
punish these individuals. These types of punishment norms are very

Creating these norms
requires that the groups
of people that engage
in such norms of mutual support are able to
punish, or enforce,
deviations from cooperation. The theory is

hard to enforce, and in
particular there must be
some sort of coordination at the group level.
The larger the group,
the harder it is to coordinate on this type of
punishment scheme. So

34

the problem is not that
people do not understand the benefits of
cooperation, the problem is that people do
not understand how to
generate behaviors that
eliminate opportunism,
that’s the complicated
part. How do I punish
individuals? How do I
make them responsible for what they have
done?
In a society of strangers
this is complicated. It
requires a lot of coordination at the civic level,
in the group or society.
What does money do
today? Money bypasses
all this because the punishment for not cooperating, so to speak, in
a monetary exchange
is that I don’t give you
anything. You do not
give me what I need; I
do not give you money.
So it simplifies tremendously the large degree
of coordination that as
social groups we have
to undertake in order

to support these norms
of mutual support. So
that’s really the benefit
of money, it bypasses
all these problems of
coordinating, of thinking about what you’ve
done in the past, how
to punish. It’s very simple: you give me nothing, I give you nothing. That’s why money
works, and that’s why
it can support these
types of interactions.
The negative effect, the
one that you notice, is
that once we decide to
coordinate on this type
of exchange – I’ll give
you something only if
you give me something

35

else – then it becomes
problematic because as
it happens these days
in Spain, in Italy and in
certain parts of the US
for sure, when I have
nothing to give you in
exchange for what I
need, then what do I do?
Well, under the norms
of monetary exchange I
can give you nothing so
I’m stuck. That’s really
the bad component of
this arrangement. It is
simple and it is intuitive, quid pro quo as
the Latins would put it,
but it has this negative
component that it displaces norms of mutual
support.

M.M. Anthropologists tend to find that cooperation is supportable in small
groups but in large groups it’s very hard to do. How can we teach people
to learn to support each other?

G.C.
As a matter of fact the
experiment is not about
teaching how people
can mutually support
so it is a sort of speculative comment that I
can make at this point
from other experiments
that we’ve done, the
important thing is to
make sure that individuals are made in their
head responsible, at an
individual level, for the
actions they’ve taken.
So what we’ve found out
is that communication
among individuals, and
in particular, information about the actions
that the individual has
taken in the past, can
help those who have
inclinations to behave
opportunistically but is
doing something that is
not very nice, for personal gain, this type of
behavior gets tremen-

dously reduced, but you
need to have the bit to
first communicate, to
know and to talk to
each other, directly if
possible, and second to
have information about
what individuals have
done. Third, you have
to have the possibility
of sustaining punishment if someone does
not behave in a way
that is socially supportive, society has to pro36

vide disincentives, has
to remove incentives,
from doing that type of
behavior.
So anyone seeing the
experiments we’ve tried
with prisoner’s dilemmas, anyone who’s
been subject to this
type of environment in
which they can communicate with others,
in which they can track
each other’s factions

and the opportunity
of punishing individuals who misbehaved
directly, generally it’s
a very, very high cooperation level. Which is
why anthropologists, as

you said, tend to find
that cooperation is supportable in small groups
but in large groups it’s
very hard to do because
information
about
behavior becomes hard.

37

Punishing, not just verbally, others, become
complicated, so this
mechanism becomes
very difficult.

M.M. I see that your findings can be applied in many fields. For example,
how we behave in a company that uses monetary incentives for their
employees?

G.C.
This is interesting, what
you say, Mado, because
there is some research
that looks into the possibility that monetary
incentives may actually
reduce the effort that
workers put into whatever the firm’s objective
is, so the experiment
was not designed to test
this sort of hypothesis
but there is some work
which shows that sometimes monetary incentives in company work
environments actually go in the opposite
direction because they
displace intrinsic incentives. For instance, if
I’m a baker, I’m allowed
to do it because I like to
make bread. Or if I am
a doctor, I like to help
38

people with my medical
skills. Sometimes providing additional incentives to the monetary
need removes these
intrinsic incentives, so
our training does not
address that there are
other interpretations
and other consequences for organizations or
work within a firm.
For example if in teamwork is very difficult to
organize around cooperative norms, perhaps
it is because the team is
far apart in the world or
team members cannot
exactly understand what
each other are doing so
there’s a contradiction
to output. There may
be monetary incentives

that can be introduced,
but I’d be very hesitant
at this point to interpret
our results in the light
of small complete type
of groups.

M.M. I guess the place you did this research was the United States with
Americans?

G.C.
That’s right. We did
it at Purdue University,
which is a university in Indiana, a couple of hours south of
Chicago, with undergraduate
students
from that institution.
The students ranged in
age from eighteen to
around twenty-four. I
think the median age
was twenty. About fiftyfifty men and women.
It’s a relatively large
international population
but of course the standard subject pool was
used. It would be interesting to look at different, non-standard subject pools.
39

M.M. What’s the next step now in your research? Do you intend to go
further?

G.C.
Definitely
more
research because this
was an initial step. At
this point we were interested in understanding
what really is the role of
money in society from
a behavioral perspective and it revealed to
us that the behavioral
role is very strong. It
is even if you can organize society in such a
way that everybody has
the maximum pay-off.
Society cannot do it but

money can help you
improve, it certainly
manages it in the societies at large.
Now we are looking at
other issues, in particular leading to the endogenous emergence of
the systems, how they
emerge, and liquidity
problems. In the experiment, the main reason
why the monetary system that emerged was
not a hundred percent
40

successful in creating
supporting cooperation
is because sometimes
those that needed help
could not buy it. That’s
what we call these days
a liquidity shortage. So
we’re looking into issues
of this type, whether
liquidity shortages can
or cannot create problems for society in terms
of performance.

explanation for the Near
Death Experience?

by
rob hutchinson
website

www.ispectrummagazine.com

I

I have always had an interest in
NDEs and despite never experiencing one myself I am a strong
believer in them. However, as a
psychologist I couldn’t help but
delve into the past research and
see if there was anything verging
on a purely psychological explanation for the NDE. Many scientists
point to neurobiological evidence,
such as a lack of oxygen in the
brain as the reason for NDEs, and
other corroborating evidence also
points to neurobiological factors.
In fact, oxygen starvation causing

n the last issue of Ispectrum
magazine we had a fascinating interview with Dr Eben
Alexander, a distinguished neurosurgeon and sceptic of the near
death experience (NDE). He never
foresaw that, despite writing a
paper discrediting people’s experience of NDEs, he would one day
become a believer. After bacteria
attacked his brain and put him in
a coma for seven days he had his
own NDE in a heavenly realm, and
he awoke from that coma a changed
man, a believer.
41

lections are subject to psychological interpretation, so an exploration
of psychological mechanisms could
shed light on the NDE reports and
lead to a better understanding of
the NDE itself. Could a psychological model explain the NDE? And if
there is no psychological evidence,
where would a psychological theory
for the NDE start and what would it
need to prove?

hallucinations is the most popular
explanation for the NDE and does
have various merits. Although neuroscience and psychology overlap
I am more interested in focusing
purely on the psychological aspect
as so far this has been largely
ignored in favour of neuroscience.
It is possible that the NDE fulfils a
psychological need, or could even
be a psychological defence mechanism. In terms of the reports of the
NDE itself it is likely that the recol42

psychological theories
and evidences
One of the earliest
psychological
theories for the NDE was
put forward by Grof
and Halifax in 1977.
They were looking for
a psychological explanation as to why NDE
reports are so universal. Their birth - memory - activation model
postulated that a close
shave with death triggered repressed memories of the process of
birth. After all, everyone is born in generally the same way, so

that would explain why
there is such consistency in NDE reports. The
peace and transcendent feelings alongside
the advancing through
a tunnel is in fact a
subjective recountance
of being born and travelling through the birth
canal, with the peace
and light at the end
representing the feeling
of being born into the
world. However, there
are obviously major
issues with this, not
least that being born
is a painful experience for the
baby. Also,
the infant
does
not
have
the
capacity to
remember
this experience so it
43

is highly unlikely that
it can remain buried
and be activated by
the moment of death.
No empirical evidence
supports this theory,
and scientific evidence
strongly indicates that
infants simply do not
have the mental pro-

cesses necessary to
remember their experiences of birth.

Many psychological
theories
have
shown that our reactions, experiences and
desires are working to

fulfil a psychological need. However
unlikely this may
seem, it could be
possible to explain
the NDE in this way.
The theory of crisis
intervention supposes that pathological states can
lead to an opportunity for positive
growth. This opportunity for growth in
crisis involves the
person entering a
state of disequilibrium due to great
periods of stress. In
this period the ego
is overwhelmed and
the person becomes
more susceptible to
positive and corrective influences. It is
possible that the person has a regression to
a very primitive level
and this return to basic
functioning leads them
to view their experiences (real or imagined) in a sense of
childlike awe and bliss.
In essence, they are
44

regressing to a preverbal stage of development where they had
an imbedded trust in
the ‘realness’ of their
experiences and feelings of bliss associated
with a time when, as
a child, all their needs
were readily met. This
could explain why people report feeling so
at ease and in awe of
their experiences within the NDE. But could
this regression indicate
that the NDE served
a psychological need?
Greyson (1981) tried
to explain why positive personality transformations sometimes
occurred in those who
had attempted suicide and experienced
an NDE. He concluded
that it was possible the
NDE reduced the person’s suicidal intentions
in the future by using
psychological mechanisms. Some of these
psychological mechanisms he used for these
explanations included

die, so the psychological
mechanism would serve
no purpose.
And, if it
occurred just to those who
went on to live, how could
these mechanisms possibly know if the person was
going to live or die? On
the positive side, it would
explain the consistency of
the NDE reports, as well
as it’s paranormal aspects
and why it can have beneficial effects on the individual.
that the NDE represents the death
of the ego, providing a substitute for
the death of the person, and the life
The most promising psychological
review helps to resolve old conflicts theories all seem to focus on why
and move on with life.
people have such a universal experience. There are some academics,
such as Grosso, who have pointed to
Could facing death cause a regres- the similarities between the universal
sion in the mind of the individual to a experience of those who experience
developmental stage of life, thereby the NDE with that of patients who
allowing psychological mechanisms suffer Delirium Tremens. This disease
to kick in , manifesting as the NDE? is caused by withdrawal from alcohol
There is no hard evidence for this or sedative - hypnotic drugs, such
and this idea relies a lot on factors as barbiturates. The symptoms of
that cannot be tested easily. Also, Delirium tremens include, amongst
does this happen just to survivors or others, palpitations, convulsions and
to everyone at death? If this regres- auditory and visual hallucinations.
sion occurred in everyone it would These hallucinations involve distorbe pointless as the huge majority tions of the environment and tactile
of people who are dying do in fact sensations such as animals crawling
45

on the skin. The interesting
The most promising psychologipart in relation to the NDE is
cal theories all seem to focus on
that there is a common elewhy people have such a universal
ment reported in these halexperience.
lucinations, be it walls morphing or visions of rats for
example, and that this element is reported across cultures, age groups and personalities. breathing rate and sometimes seiIt seems that the common hallucina- zures. All these physiological changtory experience is universal in the
es are rapidly affecting the
same way as the NDE. We
system, just like the body
know Delirium Tremens
may go through sharp
is caused by withdrawal
changes just before,
from a drink or drug
or during, a person’s
that is usually prevaNDE. In the case of
lent in the body sysDelirium Tremens
tem, and it is characthese
changes
terized by high blood
cause hallucinations
pressure and pulse,
that are similar in
increased
most sufferers, so why
does it seem so strange
to suggest that the similar experiences reported in the NDE
could be caused by the physiological
changes that they are experiencing?
Many people assume that the NDE
is such a special experience because
of the common elements reported,
but Delirium Tremens shows that it
is not unique for people who suffer
drastic changes in the physiological
components of the body to experience common elements in visions or
hallucinations.
46

So far the evidence for
a psychological explanation for the NDE is
looking pretty thin on
the ground. The theories or ideas are there
but nothing has been
shown to be solid
enough to be rigorously tested to provide
hard evidence. A key
factor in all psychological theories is having
a workable model that
can be tested, so what
would a model for the
NDE have to account
for and how could it be
put to the test? If we
assume that the NDE
does have some sort
of psychological function then a working
model would be able
to explain it.

A psychological model
would have to account
for three things in relation to the NDE; the
consistency of reports
and the universality of
those who report them,

the psychological reason behind it and the
physiological processes in the brain that
occur during the process. At the moment
it is extremely difficult
47

to construct any kind
of model in relation to
the NDE as the psychological theories are
just not robust enough
to form the basis of
a model. Looking back

At this moment there seems not be
a strong psychological explanation
for the NDE

on Grof and Halifax’s
birth - memory activation model it is almost
impossible to test, and
in terms of a model
based on the regression
theory it has more valid

points but still remains
elusive in terms of providing anything that
could lead to concrete
results.

48

At this moment there
seems not be a strong
psychological explanation for the NDE. There
are some loose theories that are difficult to
prove but could serve
as a starting point for
further analysis if a
more in depth investigative method can be
found. However, interesting points are raised
in terms of explaining
the consistency of NDE
reports.
As for producing a psychological
model, the criteria it
would have to explain
are clear, but as yet
no-one has been able
to put forward anything
substantial in terms of
ticking all the boxes and
providing valid results.

Physiological evidence
on the other hand
remains the most solid
scientific explanation
for the NDE. However,
Dr Kenneth Ring, who
has committed substantial time and efforts
into researching the
NDE, feels that with
the consistency of the
NDE reports and the
fact that these reports
are across cultures, age
groups and different
backgrounds, covering such a large spectrum, that it is hard to
explain by just using
the processes of the
brain. How can it be so
consistent across people from all continents?
After all, scientists
are still struggling to
explain the consciousness, itself a key part
of the NDE. If scientists cannot unravel the
intricacies of this pivotal factor of the NDE,
how can they hope to
explain the NDE itself?
This gives added impor-

tance to a psychological approach, which, if
a testable theory could
be developed, would at
least focus more on the
mind than the biology

49

of the brain and may
lead investigations into
a different, more productive, direction.

Image: SOHO - EIT Consortium, ESA, NASA

‘‘All the Stars in our Galaxy produce harmonic vibrations
producing a kind of celestial melody’’- Professor Donald W
Kurtz (Astrophysics Centre ,University of Lancashire ,UK)

www . ispectrummagazine . c o m

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