Location of coils: Temporal Lobe
Duration: (?)
Signal type: Hippocampus signals 40Hz Alternating Modulated (fast alteration)
(volume increased to 86% output)

Overview:
This was my second session with the Shakti 8-coil device. Once AGAIN, I fell asleep. But unlike the last time I woke up feeling… above average mental clarity. I don’t recall any odd dreams but I felt very well rested almost like my brain had been rebooted.

Brain Reboot
If you’ve ever dealt with a Windows operating system (particularly PRE-XP), you’ll know that every now and then the system needs to be rebooted. That is completely shutting off the computer and turning it back on. If those legacy Windows system are not shut off every now and then you are in for a smorgusborg of delicious errors, hang time and lossed data for no damn “blue screen of death” reason. Well, that is was I felt like happen to me. I felt like my brain had been loaded with a bloated ineffecient Microsoft product that had been running without a reboot for about two months too long. I felt (perhaps unreasonably so) like my brain could calculate anything. Mentally, on that day was like the skinny guy that works out for two weeks into a New Years resolution, gets a pump and starts to puff his chest out in front of the babes!

I believe the Shakti had something to do with it, but not totally conviced yet. So I will mark this session as “Do Over”.

Location of coils: Temporal Lobe
Duration: (?)
Signal type: Hippocampus signals 40Hz Alternating Modulated (fast alteration)
(volume increased to 86% output)

Overview:
I consider this a tainted session since it was conducted while I was completely exhausted. I was literally falling asleep as I was figuring the system out.

Initial Sensation:
I anticipated the initial sensation that I’ve read others experience after only a few seconds or minutes of Shakti activiatation:

“I did feel a sensation of expansion and peacefulness in my heart only seconds after I put the (hippocampal) signal on. … It felt like I was taking a contraction out of my brain. I am looking forward to taking out more of this contracted state…” — shakti technology testimonials

I was hesitant even to put the device over my head for fear of being catapulted into an experience that would topple my little world like a house of cards in the middle of Chicago. I was in my computer room feeling like Neo about to take the “Red Pill” with Todd Murphy (this devices inventor) as a real life Morpheus about to eject me out of the Matrix for good (I’ve got a pretty awesome imagination).

Alas, I had no such luck. I didn’t feel anything. I put the device on, configured it for Hippocampus signal over the temporal lobe and felt nothing for about 10 minutes while I laid in my pitch black room. The next thing I new it was morning. The alarm clock was blasting and the Shakti tentacles were tossed haphazardly to the side of the bed.

Conclusion:
I think I was just too tired. The instructions indicate that you should wait for 36 hours before staping in again. I don’t normally follow instructions, but in this case I’ve decided to play it safe. In the middle of the day, 5 Jan 08, I had strange ache in my right temporal lobe. Its strange because I don’t normally get such localized headaches on that side of my head. I may have been dehydrated. I decided to count this session as a do over.

So far neo-atheist have been using Persinger’s research as proof that all mystical experiences are not real because they can be produced. Surprisingly, Persinger does not feel this way. He has in fact tested psychically talented people to see the affects of magnetic fields on them.

Todd Murphy created what he calls the 8-coil Shakti based on Persinger’s research. The 8-coil Shakti is an affordable, homemade device that sends weak magnetic fields into the brain to produce similar experiences… though the technology is different from what Persinger uses.

I decided to get one and test it out.

Intergral Persinger:
He organized the Behavioral Neuroscience Program at Laurentian University, which became one of the first to integrate chemistry, biology and psychology. — wiki

The pinnacle of what I have come across so far is Ken Wilber’s Integral Spirituality. Although I don’t yet fully “grok” his stuff on metaphysics, his ideas on religions, science and states of consciousness are GROUND BREAKING!

For one thing he has what is known as the Wilber-Combs Lattice

The Wilber-Combs Lattice is a matrix that maps states of consciousness with types of religious belief.

I’ve written a little blurb about this on my post “What is an Empirical Spiritualist”
I have been in several religions, faiths and/or societies (but currently hold no allegiance to any one organization). I have had experiences with almost all. Each of these experiences have been colored by the culture, beliefs, dogma of the organization I was in at the time.

Here are some examples of religions that influenced by spiritual experience:

Christian - as a penecostal I was worshiping Jesus surrounded by some of the praising, shouting congregation and I felt an energy bolt going through my body. A penecostal might call this the holy ghost (aka Holy Spirit).

Eckankar – I was in a state of great peace and saw/felt a blue light shine down on me. Eckist call this one part of the “Light and Sound of God” (aka Holy Spirit)

Integral Spirituality – After a session with a Zen Buddhist Genpo Roshi conducting what is called a Big Mind exercise I felt a profound (overwhelming) oneness with anything I looked at.

Each experience has been shaped and interpreted by the culture/religion/faith I was apart of at the time. This in NO WAY INVALIDATES the phenomenon. It did happen. They were very real and in some cases have changed the course of my life.

The religion/culture/society in which I live gives me the language to explain what has happened and simultaneously shapes the experience.  Sometimes the language is to crude to give an effective account.  I believe that many times the original message gets “lost in translation”.  Many religions have been founded and shaped on these crude interpretations of real experiences.

The source of the phenomenon is a different kind of discussion. While we might agree that the phenomenon happend in the brain (or perhaps merely recorded there) from the ‘mind’ we may disagree on whether the source was from subtle energies and/or spirit. We can only theorize and assume what the source of my phenomenon is.  And we can only prove the orgins to ourselves as we can not share PHYSICAL evidence of anything happening with electroencophalographs and other tools used to measure the activity of the brain. Those tools are too crude to tell us anything beyond the brain. Whatever we believe the hows and whys are, it is very important to realize the context to which these phenomenon occur. For example, if I was scitzoprenic and my dog was telling me to kill my landlord, that experience may be real to me, but the phenomenon occuring is dangerous and more than likely pathological.  The best way to make a clear judgment  on  any interpretation is to look at all (or as many as possible) sides: physical history, cultural background, stage and state of consciousness.  All are important factors in examining an inner experience.  AQAL is a perfect map for such an examination.
Language/Semantics/culture/religion and their contextual meaning shape not only altered states of consciousness but “normal” states as well. As in a dream, we construct the meaning as well as the happenings of the experience consciously, subconsciously and/or unconsciously.

I suspect that our perspective is completely relative to our constantly shifting meaning. Ego, states of consciousness, and stages of conscious experiences do have some level of reality and so they do deserve our attetion and management but the only *absolute is Being, Here, NOW. All else is real ONLY relative to something else. The “suchness” of the moment is really all there is.

*The only absolute is being, here now (nowness, the suchness of this single moment – or perhaps the only absolute is NO-absolute or as Wilber says the combination of Form & Emptiness – nondual).

“I am an empirical spiritualist because the only way one can know truth is by experience. Observing with our eyes, sensing with our intuition, feeling with our emotions: these are all necessary parts of discerning truth. We must trust them. That is how God communicates with us, by providing emotional, visual and intuitive information qued to the empirical experiences of nature.” — Center for Unhindered Living

This is similar to how I feel about how to attain “truth”.  Some would immediately discount things like “out of body experiences” and even lucid dreams as having little or no value and then call themselves “scientists”.  A real scientist looks for proof prior to making hasty assumptions about what is and is not probable/possible. 

On the other hand, I don’t instantly believe or agree with everything I hear preached in the pulpit  or claimed in books.  I like to experience things for myself (if possible) prior to making an assumption.

Jesus, Buddha and other enlightened beings actually had direct contact and experience.  Their teachings have been taken and interpreted by the masses and the results have been social stability at best and subversive population and resource control and manipulation at worse.

The problem with Direct Experience: Interpretation 

Because interpretation plays such a huge part in how we use what we know, I don’t believe that even direct experience is a “cure all” for the current human condition.  Anyone can have a phenomenological experience, and their interpretation of that experience will be based on their current psychological-sociological (and unfortunately pathological) stage. 

How a person interprets those experiences can be seen in the Wilber-Combs Lattice:

The lattice shows the spiritual/religious belief level (or type of belief) a person can have ranging from Archaic to Integral (this is taken from James Fowler’s research on stages of faith).  The top of the W-C Lattice shows the type of phenomenological experience a person can have.

A person at an Archaic level can have a phenomenological experience (i.e. feel a holy presence, feel one with all things ect), however their interpretation of the experience will be much difference than someone at say and Integral level.  A person on the lower end of the W-C Lattice might come away from an experience of oneness and suddenly think that they are a Messiah or even God. 

So a person such as Vernon Wayne Howell (a.k.a David Koresh), may have indeed had visions, however the interpretation is determined by the psychological make up of the individual.  Vernon’s beliefs and vision (an alleged phenomenological experience he had while on a trip to Israel) guided him to take control of the Branch Davidian Seventh-day Adventists, break a bunch of federal laws and get subsequently killed by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) when the Branch Davidian compound was raided. 

*There are many variables that can be considered which led up to the terrible tragedy that took the lives of 70+ victims (including children), and I won’t disrespect these people by claiming that faith and religion had everything to do with their deaths.  For one, there were alot of mistakes made by the U.S. government.

From a different Perspective

When ever we have experiences it is imperative that we keep them in context.  Merely keeping all phenomenological experiences in perspective (this doesn’t at all mean ignoring them or devaluing them) we can have the wisdom on how to act.  Having perspective means acknowledging biases, assumptions and psychological/physical make up that come from our social upbringing and genetics.  Unfortunately, this is a big hurdle for many religious traditions as they claim exclusive rights to all truth and perspectives leaving no room for evaluation and questions. 

Pathological disorders and phenomenological experiences are a whole different ball game.  The truly ignorant would put both in the same category (very 18th century “lets lobotomize and shock everyone until they think like us” kind of dogma).