Saturday, May 26, 2012

'Magic Mushrooms' May Permanently Alter Personality | Hallucinogens and Mind-Altering Substances | Drug Use | LiveScience

'Magic Mushrooms' May Permanently Alter Personality

Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer

Psilocybin is found in mushrooms such as Psilocybe mexicana.

Psilocybe mexicana, the mushroom from which psilocybin was first extracted.
CREDIT: Cactu, Wikipedia

Just one strong dose of hallucinogenic mushrooms can alter a person's personality for more than a year and perhaps permanently, a new study finds.
People given psilocybin, the compound in "magic mushrooms" that causes hallucinations and feelings of transcendence, demonstrated a more "open" personality after their experience, an effect that persisted for at least 14 months. Openness is a psychological term referring to an appreciation for new experiences. People who are more open tend to have broad imaginations and value emotion, art and curiosity.
This personality warp is unusual, said study researcher Katherine MacLean, because personality rarely changes much after the age of 25 or 30. (In fact, one recent study found that by first grade our personalities are set pretty much for life.)
"This is one of the first studies to show that you actually can change adult personality," said MacLean, a postdoctoral researcher at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

The root of the change seems to be not the drug itself, MacLean told LiveScience, but the mystical experiences that psilocybin often triggers. These profound, transcendent feelings feel no less real to people for being chemically induced, she said. [Read: How Do Hallucinogens Work?]
"Many years later, people are saying it was one of the most profound experiences of their life," MacLean said. "If you think about it in that context, it's not that surprising that it might be permanent."
Tripping for science
Research on hallucinogens is usually associated with 1960s counterculture figures such as Ken Kesey and his LSD-fueled "Acid Test" parties. But within the last decade, a somber, step-by-step approach to studying the effect of hallucinogens has emerged, MacLean said. Experiments are tightly controlled — it's not easy to get permission to give volunteers illegal drugs — but they are revealing that substances associated more with Grateful Dead concerts than the psychiatrist's office may have medical uses after all.
In Massachusetts, the nonprofit research institute MAPS, or Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, is investigating the possibility of using the hallucinogen MDMA to treat post-traumatic stress disorder. Both LSD and psilocybin are under investigation for their use in treating anxiety; MacLean's postdoctoral adviser at Johns Hopkins, Roland Griffiths, is leading a study to find out if psilocybin might ease anxiety and depression in cancer patients. Another of Griffiths' studies focuses on using psilocybin to break nicotine addiction.
In the current study, MacLean and her colleagues looked at personality questionnaires from 51 people who had taken psilocybin as part of two separate Johns Hopkins studies. The volunteers were all new to hallucinogenic drugs.
Each person attended between two and five eight-hour drug sessions in which they would sit blindfolded on a couch listening to music — a way to encourage introspection. During one of the sessions, the volunteers received a moderate-to-high dose of psilocybin, but neither they nor the experimenters knew whether they would be swallowing a psilocybin pill or a placebo on any given day.
In one experiment, participants came into the laboratory twice. On one visit they were given the real deal and another time they got Ritalin, which mimics the side effects of psilocybin without the hallucinations.
In another experiment, over a course of five sessions, participants received either a placebo or one of varying doses of the drug. For the purposes of this study, the researchers focused on the high-dose session, which was the same dose given during the first experiment.
Before the drug sessions, the participants filled out the personality questionnaire that measured openness. They also filled out the same questionnaires a few weeks later and then again about 14 months after their high hallucinogenic dose.
Transcendence in a pill
The results, published today (Sept. 29) in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, revealed that while other aspects of personality stayed the same, openness increased after a psilocybin experience. The effect was especially persistent for those who reported a "mystical" experience with their dose. These mystical experiences were marked by a sense of profound connectedness, along with feelings of joy, reverence and peace, MacLean said. [Top 10 Mysteries of the Mind]
"It's probably not just psilocybin that causes changes like this, but more these kinds of profound life-changing experiences, whatever flavor they take," she said. "For a lot of people, psilocybin allows them to transcend their ways of thinking about the world."
About 30 of the 51 volunteers had a mystical experience, MacLean said. The openness changes in these participants were larger than those changes typically seen over decades of life experience in adults.
But this is a strictly do-not-try-this-at-home experiment, MacLean cautioned. The participants in the study were under close supervision during their session with the drug. Psychological support and preparation helped keep bad trips to a minimum, but many participants still reported fear, anxiety and distress after taking psilocybin.
"I could see how in an unsupervised setting, if that sort of fear or anxiety set in, the classic bad trip, it could be pretty dangerous," MacLean said, adding that the risk of unsupervised usage outweighs any potential reward. Psilocybin is classified as a Schedule I drug in the U.S., meaning the government considers it to have a high potential for abuse and no legitimate medical purpose. [Read: The 10 Most Destructive Human Behaviors]
It's not yet clear whether unsupervised usage would even result in the same changes in openness as seen in the study, MacLean said. The study group was small, and was already more religious and more open than the general population.
MacLean is now researching the effects of combining psilocybin with meditation. There could be therapeutic benefits to boosting openness, she said, including helping people break out of negative thought patterns. The studies might also illuminate the anecdotal connection between hallucinogens and art, she said: "On the most speculative side, this suggests that there might be an application of psilocybin for creativity or more intellectual outcomes that we really haven't explored at all."

'Magic Mushrooms' May Permanently Alter Personality | Hallucinogens and Mind-Altering Substances | Drug Use | LiveScience

Friday, May 18, 2012

Brazil and the Spirit of Liberty

The Daily Reckoning Presents

Brazil and the Spirit of Liberty

Jeffrey Tucker

My most surprising findings in Brazil, aside from the amazing fruits that I didn’t know existed because the US government doesn’t think I need them, were the young American kids who have moved here to find economic opportunity. This I had not expected, but now fully understand.

Brazil is a marvelous and massive country where private wealth thrives without embarrassment, where well-protected and healthy familial dynasties form the infrastructure of social and economic life, where technology is popular and beloved by everyone, where the police leave you alone and where Americans can feel right at home.

The world is changing fast. Freedom in America is slipping away so quickly that we are already seeing a wave of young people leaving in search of new opportunities, just as people from around the world once came to America to live the dream. Brazil is one of many countries benefiting from the generational emigration from the US.

Discovering this rattled me more than I might have expected. But the young people themselves are not unhappy, and I can see why. They are valued. They are earning good money doing interesting things. They have access to one of the most beautiful and exotic and friendly places on Earth. They eat well, live well and have rich social lives.

More than anything else, they have the sense of freedom.

Now, you might wonder how it is that people have to leave the “home of the free” to find freedom. Over the last 10 years, something horrible has happened to the United States. The police state has cracked down hard, not so much on “terrorists” or real criminals, but on regular citizens. The news items spill out of my feed on an hourly basis, things that just shock and alarm those who are paying attention.

Maybe it is not so surprising. The US military is larger than most of the world’s militaries combined. We have the largest prison population on the planet, and most are locked up for nonviolent crimes. The political culture focuses more on the need for security than for freedom. Add it all up and you have the perfect recipe for the emergence of a police state.

But most Americans are not entirely conscious of the change. It has been fast, but slow enough not to cause alarm. It hits you only once you leave. This happened to me two years ago when I went to Spain. I could move about and do what I wanted without bumping into authority at every turn. I felt it again in Austria last year. It is not something you can quite put your finger on, just a sense that you are not under constant surveillance in suspicion. You can breathe easily.

It was the same in Sao Paulo, Brazil, a happy and prosperous land of exotic fruits, thriving markets, consumer products that actually work and are not depreciated by regulatory mandates, and polite and warm people.

I received a very generous invitation to be a main speaker at the third conference on Austrian economics sponsored by Mises Brasil, a young organization with a very bright future. It was founded only four years ago. Yet today, it has a gigantic presence in Brazilian intellectual life. The hunger for the intellectual basis of freedom is palpable.

Three hundred or more people were here to listen to lectures and engage in debates on ideas. The audience was a sea of young people, most everyone under 30. They were students, professionals, traders and workers of all sorts, all passionate about freedom and the economic answers provided by the Austrian tradition of Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek and Murray Rothbard.

What most excited them was the classic idea of laissez faire — that is, the idea that society can thrive on its own in the absence of central management and that the government operates as a drain on society. The culture of the group was certainly more intellectual and educational than political. They were invigorated by ideas and given hope by the idea of freedom. Apparently, nothing like this organization existed in Brazil until recently. Now the group’s website is one of the most heavily trafficked in the country.

My hosts were enormously generous with their time, and they knew exactly what I really wanted to do on the first day: see the delights of the open-air markets. I was told they are in the center of town. If you had seen a map of Sao Paulo, you would know just how odd it is even to imagine such a thing. The city seems to be everywhere in sight, everywhere you turn, going on forever. It is like 100 New Yorks.

Driving here is not for the faint of heart. The street layout makes no rational sense at all. I could have been driven the short distance between the hotel and the conference center a hundred times and still not have had the slightest clue about the layout. I was told that it would take at least two years of living here to gain a sense that you really know the place.

Go to a high spot in the center of town and look around on all sides. Everywhere you see a beautiful thing, a world built by millions of human hands. No central plan could have made this. No single mind could have conceived of it. To anyone who is intellectually curious, the obvious questions are how does this place work? How is order achieved? The answer is one that few people in the United States seem to care about today. The miracle is obtained through the coordinating forces of the market itself, of millions of free people interacting in small ways toward their mutual self-betterment. This is the answer that inspires a lifetime of intellectual curiosity.

On the first lunch on my first day, my hosts took me to a place like I had never seen, and they are as unconscious of its significance as Americans would be startled by its very existence. Again, it seemed to be in the center of town. To obtain entry requires extensive security checks. But once you are in, a new world emerges: restaurants, soccer fields, gigantic swimming pools of many varieties and delights as far as the eye can see.

This is a city within a city. But it is entirely private, what Americans would call a “country club,” but of a particularly elaborate type. It is not hidden away in some alcove on the outskirts of town. It is right there in the city for everyone to see — something nonmembers can also take pride in. It is marvelous in every way, a living monument to the possibility of orderly, privately owned anarchist communities.

One thing kept gnawing at me during my entire visit. I kept coming across people who were members of large and extended families with roots very far back in Brazilian history. They were impressive entrepreneurs, but the wealth was more robust than you would find in a place like Silicon Valley. It reminded more of Gilded Age families in the United States, people who carried themselves with grace and confidence born of excellent breeding and material security.

As I thought about it more, the ingredients were unusual by American standards: large and extended families, protected wealth, well-bred youths, a predominantly young population. What was the reason for this? I developed a quick, back-of-the-napkin theory. It had something to do with the inheritance tax. So I asked my hosts, “What are estate taxes like in this country?” The answer came fast: There are none. Some areas charge 3%, maybe 6%, but it is rather easy to escape even those minimal charges.

This contrasts with the United States, where estate taxes can be as high as 35%. We’ve been looting our best families for 100 years. We’ve gouged and smashed the richest generations of American capitalists upon death ever since the Progressive Era. We’ve been living one generation at a time. Time horizons have fallen. Large-scale, privately held capital accumulation has been discouraged, even made illegal. Families have shrunk in size. The population has become ever more aged.

This tax policy has eaten the heart out of the desire of a free people to create dynasties. So our wealthy have to hide. They are encouraged to give their money away to causes, rather than to children. We live one generation to the next. Children are perceived of as an economic burden, rather than a path to immortalizing a legacy.

In Brazil, the time horizon extends beyond the single lifetime. And this is what has given rise to the dramatic cultural, social and economic differences between our countries. These dynasties serve as robust intermediating institutions between the individual and the state. We have ever fewer such things in the United States. Maybe this is what accounts for the incoherent sense that this is a freer country than the US.

There are other factors, too. The military consumes only a tiny percentage of wealth, and Brazilians dread wars because they know that they will be roped into supporting whatever wacky war the US starts. What’s more, the police are well-known to be as likely to commit as prevent or punish crime, so they are not trusted. Security is extremely important in Brazil, but everyone knows that it is a private function and not anything anyone would entrust to the state.

The beautiful thing about Mises Brazil as an organization is that it is working to further encourage these instincts and to spread an intellectual culture that openly embraces liberty as a model of life itself. They publish books and monographs, hold conferences and spread the liberal tradition far and wide among an idea-hungry generation. This is all about the future, and Mises Brazil is right to have confidence in it.

As I waited in the customs line to enter the US again, we were all shown a film designed to introduce America to new visitors. The film featured kids in ballet class, people riding horses, barn raisings, people water surfing, dances from coast to coast, smiling people of all ages, all against the backdrop of an exciting Coplandesque musical score. It ended with the Statue of Liberty. It was wholly inspiring, but there was something missing: The government was nowhere to be seen.

How I wish this film were the whole truth about our country. It once was. But the American dream is not about geography; the American dream is an idea that moves like a spirit around the world, landing wherever people are willing to embrace it and confess it as creed. That spirit has landed in Brazil, and it was a great honor to be witness to it.

Regards,

Jeffrey Tucker,
for The Daily Reckoning

Durian Batu....!!!

These are Durian Batu found in our jungles and they belong to the Orang Asli. Not commercially-grow.

Durian kura-kura
-- Bear fruit at the foot
of the tree

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"Samuel Adams - Father of the American Revolution"

"Water & Words"

"Water & Words"

Can water be affected by our words?
Dr. Masaru Emoto, a Japanese scientist, believes so.
And he has proof.

Dr. Emoto took water droplets, exposed them to various words, music, and environments, and froze them for three hours. He then examined the crystal formations under a dark field microscope. And he took photographs.

The results were totally mind-blowing.

Here's a photo of ordinary water without any prayer spoken over it. The molecular structure is in disarray.

The photo below is water after the prayer was said. It's simply breathtaking. (I now have a great respect for praying before meals! More on this later.)

Dr. Emoto also exposed water to Heavy Metal music. Here's how it looks like. Looks sad if you ask me.

Here's water exposed to classical music and folk dance music. Looks much better, right?

Next, Dr. Emoto stuck a piece of paper with these words: "You make me sick. I will kill you." Here's how the frozen water droplets looks like under the microscope…

Below is how water looked like with the words "Love" over it. The difference is amazing.

This is Polluted water…

This is water from Lourdes , France . Utterly beautiful, right?

Wait A Minute— Aren't You Made Up Of Water?

Yes! 72% of your body is made up of water.
Imagine how your words affect your own body. When you say, "I'm a failure," or "I'm hopeless," or "I won't get well," imagine how these words weaken your health.

Make a choice to say the best words out there. Say often, "I'm wonderful," and "I'm beautiful,".

It's not only water.

Dr. Emoto also experimented with cooked rice. He placed one cup of cooked rice in two airtight jars. On one jar, he wrote, "I love you," and on the other, "You fool." Everyday for 30 days, Dr. Emoto would say these words to each jar of rice.

After 30 days, the "I love you" rice was still white. But the "You fool" rice was so rotten, it was black. How can you explain this?

Just as a side note: When I was a child, my mother taught me to pray before meals. Now I realize it wasn't just a nice thing to do. When I pray over my meal, I know a material transformation takes place in the molecular level of the food that I pray for. I say, "Be blessed," to the water and food on the table—and I expect it to be blessed.

Yeah – that's why we always wish others well on birthdays, anniversaries, graduation, festivals, examination days, etc…. BE BLESSED, everybody!!!