Research
What animals are thinking and feeling, and why it should matter
Fabulous presentation by Carl Safina at TEDxMidAtlantic
“Carl Safina takes us inside the lives and minds of animals around the world, witnessing their profound capacity for perception, thought and emotion, showing why the word “it” is often inappropriate as we discover “who” they really are. And yet, we are wiping out the very animals we should celebrate; we are the flood coming for Noah’s Ark. Carl leaves us with a difficult question: Do we have what it takes to let life on earth survive?
“Carl Safina’s work has been recognized with MacArthur, Pew, and Guggenheim Fellowships, and his writing has won the Lannan Literary Award and the John Burroughs, James Beard, and George Rabb medals. He has a PhD in ecology from Rutgers University. Safina is the inaugural endowed professor for nature and humanity at Stony Brook University, where he co-chairs the steering committee of the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science and is founding president of the not-for-profit Safina Center. He hosted the 10-part PBS series Saving the Ocean with Carl Safina. His writing appears in The New York Times, National Geographic, Audubon and other periodicals, and on the Web at National Geographic News and Views, Huffington Post, and CNN.com. Carl Safina’s writing shows how humanity is changing the natural world and what those changes mean for wildlife and for people.”
Charlie Goldsmith, Energy Healer
I follow Charlie Goldsmith on Facebook. Today he posted this comment, along with a photo of an article about him in ELLE:
“3 years since I came out of hiding”
The online version of the article begins with the question, how do you prove it?
The proof is in the pudding. But will there ever be enough to satisfy the medical mainstream?
Energy Healing Works—Many Say. But How Do You Prove It?
Charlie Goldsmith says he can alleviate body pain and allergy symptoms, even cure infections, just by focusing his mind on what ails us. Now comes the hard part: using the scientific method to prove it to the medical mainstream.
In the 17 years since the bewildering day that Charlie Goldsmith discovered what he calls his “gift,” the 35-year-old energy healer from Melbourne, Australia, has been trying to get someone in the medical world to take him seriously. He has wanted to be of use, working with the formal sanction of doctors in hospitals. He has wanted to be recognized for what he knows he can do—not simply to justify the strange turn his life took when he was 18, but to shore up the credibility of a practice long plagued by fraud and religious superstition, and to make the experience of discovering and developing a healing gift like his less traumatic for other people. It’s one thing to be teased by friends; it’s another to be brushed off by the medical profession as a well-meaning but deluded screwball whose results probably have less to do with energy than with the placebo effects of his kind and empathetic manner, perhaps even his salubrious blue eyes and handsome surf-side looks.
Continue reading the article online here.
The Science of Energy Healing – Free Video Series
Once upon a time I offered energy healing to a relative. Said relative freaked out. Oops! I tried to reassure the person that there was nothing spooky about it, that it can be understood through the lens of science. No go. I wish I would have had a good resource to point to.
It’s been more than a decade since that unfortunate incident. And things have changed. Now we have many great resources, such as The Science of Energy Healing video mini-series produced by the Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology. It’s available to view online September 18-24.
Learn about the free series here. Be sure to download the Science of Energy Psychology Quick Facts (PDF).
Dean Radin says magic is real and science proves it
Real Magic: Ancient Wisdom, Modern Science, and a Guide to the Secret Power of the Universe
Here’s the book description:
“The chief scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) turns a critical eye toward such practices as telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition and psychokinesis. Are such powers really possible? Science says yes.”
Science says yes.
The description continues:
“According to noted scientist and bestselling author of The Conscious Universe, Dean Radin, magic is a natural aspect of reality, and each of us can tap into this power with diligent practice.
But wait, aren’t things like ESP and telepathy just wishful thinking and flights of the imagination? Not according to the author, who worked on the US government’s top secret psychic espionage program known as Stargate. Radin has spent the last forty years conducting controlled experiments that demonstrate that thoughts are things, that we can sense others’ emotions and intentions from a distance, that intuition is more powerful than we thought, and that we can tap into the power of intention (think The Secret, only on a more realistic and scientific level). These dormant powers can help us to lead more interesting and fulfilling lives.
Beginning with a brief history of magic over the centuries (what was called magic two thousand years ago is turning out to be scientific fact today), a review of the scientific evidence for magic, a series of simple but effective magical techniques (the key is mental focus, something elite athletes know a lot about), Radin then offers a vision of a scientifically-informed magic and explains why magic will play a key role in frontiers of science.”
So there you have it. I completely understand the skeptism about telepathic, nonlocal communication. But the science is solid, the U.S. and Russian governments use remote viewers… What more can I say?
One down (telepathic communication), one more to go: Has science proved that humans and animals can communicate with each other? Beyond the typical ways of communicating, of course. Stay tuned!
Science advances one funeral at a time
A fabulous commentary by Rick Leskowitz, MD, about energy and paradigm shifts concludes with this reminder:
“One hundred years ago, the discoveries of quantum physicist Max Planck triggered a paradigm shift, one that was met with great resistance by the scientific establishment of his era. He responded: ‘Science advances one funeral at a time.’ The current expansion and shift of scientific paradigms could potentially run a smoother course, if medicine finally comes to terms with the intangibles in its closet.”
Even though energy healing has been successfully practiced for thousands of years, “our materialist dismissal of these intangibles has hindered our acceptance of many effective alternative and complementary healing modalities and limited our concept of what it means to be human,” writes Leskowitz.
Read the article “How Tapping into ‘Energy’ Can Trigger a Paradigm Shift in Biomedicine” here.
