We'd like to know what you think about Neurotheology: Virtual Religion in the 21st Century.   Please leave your comments so we can share your thoughts with other visitors.  If there is enough interest, we may launch a weekly discussion group with the author.  Thanks!

Thank you.

Date:

13 Feb 2005

Time:

18:37:32

Remote User:

Comments

I found the book extremely interesting and thought provoking. For the first time some of my own personal transcendent experiences (completely unsolicited and initially at least disturbing and rather unwanted) can be fitted into some sort of meaningful framework. Good stuff. However there has been one rather unwanted effect. Up until now I have been absolutely convinced that death would launch me into infinity and eternity and I never worried about what sort of death I would eventually end up having. I am rather concerned about the need to avoid at all cost ending my life by the 'violent destruction of the brain while in a disrupted mental state' - does the author have any words of wisdom on how to avoid this. I don't want to have a dismal eternity at all.

I would be interested in joining a discussion group if you get one up and running

Jo Mazengarb - Canberra Australia

Date:

28 Feb 2005

Time:

13:15:00

Remote User:

Comments

I THINK LAURENCE O MCKINNEY GLIDES ACROSS THE DNA CHORDS OF OUR BLISSFUL HUMAN SYMPHONY LIKE WAGNER ON A STRADIVARIUS...TRY TO PROVE HIM WRONG!! the ghost of Timothy Leary appearing as Captain Scarbelly

Date:

18 Mar 2005

Time:

23:09:33

Remote User:

Comments

Hi Folks,

sorry that I've been absent a month. Thank you, Jo, for your kind words. Your concern is of course the one we all have - it's nice to fade out with everyone around you, but suppose you come face to face with it and it bothers the hell out of you - can you find any peace there? I have a couple of comments. First, if you've ever actually faced sudden death head on, and it happens to a lot of us, me three times to be exact, the overriding mind set is "well I'll be damned" more than anything else. Once I should have been killed by a car, another time it was a similar "missed by an inch" sort of thing. It's the approaching business that really gets to us. At 60, I can say that relative to a 25 year old, death is rushing at me. Eeek. But more to the point, there's that business of being on the ship that sinks, or the plane that crashes, or whatever gives you a chance to get really upset about it all. I actually mention this in the book, and that's actually where your religious or meditative tradtion kicks in, and that's why it's good to have one just for that purpose. I can remember one time flying into New Orleans and the pilot tried to outfly some huge storm and missed entirely, one of those times the plane gets tossed around pretty violently, and there were plenty of yelps and prayers and I just clicked on my mantra recitation, in my case a simple one I got from a Tibetan lama, which had the effect of steadying my mind to the point at which I was thinking, oh, what do you know, we'll either make it in one piece, or we won't, all right, and I won't say I was whistling, but I was able to get out of most of my fear. Just by having repeated those syllables for so long, unconnected to anything, they were there like a life raft when everything else tied my reality into a pretty chaotic scenario. I hope that helps a little.

I liked that comment about a "framework" - when I wrote up the first version, I contacted a friend doing graduate work in philosophy at Boston College, which has a very good philosophy department. "Is it possible to outline an entire framework of thought in about six pages?" "Sure", she said, "But you might need six hundred to explain just how you got there." A half hour later she was saying "that's real science, right, that's real hard science?" I assured her it was. "I'll be damned," she said, "then you've actually developed a systematic philosophy that holds together, and that's really hard." "So what's that?" I asked. "Well, you posit a system which itself explains everything else, and you've sort of done that with neuroscience, in that the system that manages consciousness is a sort of primal basic operating manual for everything else."

What did I know? So we were both a little pleased that although I went looking for an answer, I came up with a framework.

And I tip my mind to Scarbelly who managed to get Wagner, AND Stradavarius, AND Timothy Leary together in a great little dash of wit there. I met Timothy Leary when he was in that strange period of time during which he was literally doing standup comedy down the block at a place called Jacks. (Jacks subsequently burned, but I rescued the ornate bar mirror, which now graces my living room wall and once reflected Mr. Leary) I took in his act, and met him later, gave him a t-shirt and a souvenir. That was about 1987. He was literally getting tossed out of Harvard in 1962, the year I arrived, and his International Federation for Internal Freedom, the original IFIF was still being managed in the late sixties in my apartment building by a very intense woman named Lisa Biebermann who, one day, had a vision of Jesus Christ in her bedroom, and promptly converted to Evangelical Christianity. I have always assumed it was some leftover Owsley that ended up in her Earl Grey, but that was long ago and Timothy shines down on us from the heavens.

Leary is a very good example of meeting death with one helluva good attitude. I've only tried LSD a dozen times at most, and not since the 70's, but it made a mellow fellow out of a very confused crusader, and in the end he did more for his cause by exiting with such panache than he did when he was trying to change the world.

A reporter for the New York Times has informed me that I'm going to be in an article next Tuesday - they probably will have that on sale in Canberra a week late, but at least I'm still current.

LMcK

Date:

22 Mar 2005

Time:

12:22:16

Remote User:

Comments

Dear LMcK: The NY Times article is out this morning and you are quoted in the first paragraph. Let's hope this doesn't bring on a severe hypomanic attack and send you roaring off to downtown Boston with your credit cards ready to deploy.

Seriously, the article offers a good discussion of a person condition I've dealt with all my life, swinging from manic to normal and back. I've always maintained that I can produce better highs from the chemicals made in my brain than anything made in the lab, or greenhouse. The euphoria of the mania is always a time of high productive energy, creativity, and fantastic insights. Yes, it's just like having drunk a lot of strong coffee. On the other side,I've called myself "normal" when I feel uninspired and disinclined to socialize. There is a productive side even here though. I find it a great time to do a lot of reading, something that's hard to concentrate on when manic. Regards, D.Steed , California

Date:

22 Mar 2005

Time:

12:34:17

Remote User:

Comments

I just read the Times article on Hypomanics and it states that Laurence Mc Kinney has a website for hypomanics. Please send me the web address. Thanks Rhoda

Date:

29 Mar 2005

Time:

01:22:47

Remote User:

Comments

Comments I just read the Times article on Hypomanics and it states that Laurence Mc Kinney has a website for hypomanics. Please send me the web address. Thanks Sanjay India walavalkar@vsnl.com

Date:

04 Apr 2005

Time:

10:47:10

Remote User:

Comments

It's true. A reporter from the NY Times called and interviewed me for a major story about individuals who were naturally at the energetic edge of life, not manic as in bipolar, but hypo (less than) manic, just buzzing along doing a lot more than average. There have been a couple of books about this, but anyone who has looked at the back cover of Neurotheology knows that I've worn a lot of hats in this life, and creating a subset of theology was and continues to be a large part of that. If you want to read the NY Times article, go to Hypomanics.com.
 

Copyright © 2004 by American Institute for Mindfulness. All rights reserved.
Revised: 08/01/07 02:56:33 -0400.