Annual Gathering 2000, Conference Abstracts

Gunts House, 13-16 July 2000

Creating a Paradigm for the Millennium: the Challenge of New Science and Old Wisdom
Barry Brailsford (New Zealand)

Barry's early books on New Zealand history and archaeology became standard texts in universities and schools. His work brought him recognition in the form of an MBE conferred by Queen Elizabeth II in 1990.

Since then Barry has left the academic world to pursue his great love of writing and telling stories. In 1990 the invitation by Waitaha, a pre-Maori people of New Zealand, to write their story changed his life. He was taken into the old schools of learning and gifted much that was sacred.

In his talk Barry will bring the great changes that face the world today into the context of ancient prophecies, going back some 4,000 years, that come pass in this age.

Somatic Metaphors: a challenge to notions of personhood and disease causation
Brian Broom (New Zealand)

If a clinician considers 'story' or meaning in patients with 'physical disease' s/he will uncover a very frequent phenomenon: the verbal language of the patient is "equivalent" to the language of the body e.g. the patient with severe chronic mouth ulcers who cannot express anger to a loved daughter, and who recovers on doing so. This phenomenon is seen in all organ systems. The story and the 'disease' appear to be different aspects of the same 'thing'. Biomedicine, psychosomatics as conventionally portrayed in dualistic terms, and psychoneuroimmunology are not adequate to this phenomenon. What are the alternative new (old) paradigmatic possibilities? What might we be talking about to our clinicians/healers in the future?

Threats to the Self: the interplay of emotion, reason and spirit
Isabel Clarke (England)

A developmental and information processing model of the construction of the self will be presented. Teasdale's Interacting Cognitive Subsystems will be the starting point for this. This provides an experimental-research-based model of the relationship between head (propositional subsystem in ICS terms) and heart (implicational subsystem) and the body (arousal states). The application of this to therapy for Personality Disorders provides the basis for this presentation. The talk is designed to elucidate:

* the impact of traumatic events and inadequate or abusive early relationships on the development of the self;
* the role of the body and the arousal system in processing threat in this process;
* a theory of psychopathology based on this;
* therapeutic approaches indicated by this perspective.
* Finally, the possible role of this model in illuminating the underlying spiritual context for the growth of the self will be explored.

This material can be presented either in terms of a straight lecture with questions, or as a workshop, in a format where the attenders are invited to examine their own experience in the light of this model, using participatory exercises.

Meridian-based Psychotherapy: Healing Hearts and Changing Minds
Susan Courtney (England)

Meridian-based Psychotherapy and Energy Psychology represent the leading edge of controversial new power therapies, clinically driven and now beginning to be substantiated by research. They take advantage of the interaction between thought, emotion, the body and the subtle energy system to effect psychological change by non-invasive stimulation of acupuncture points. Originally developed to treat phobias and fears, they can effectively treat a wide range of psychological disturbances, from addiction to PTSD, and also enhance performance. This workshop presents their historical development, theoretical speculations on how they effect powerful, quick and gentle results, and an experiential introduction to one meridian-based approach.

Starting Afresh at the Very Beginning
Paul Hague (Sweden)

The union of science and spirituality cannot be realised within the context of any existing tradition of either East or West, for such a synthesis of everything is transcultural and transdisciplinary. To heal the fragmentation of the mechanistic, dualistic mind, to realise nondual Wholeness, it is thus necessary to start afresh at the very beginning, to free ourselves of our cultural conditioning. This is what has been spontaneously happening to me over the past twenty years. As a result of this revolutionary experiment in learning, I now know the Divine, Consciousness, Intelligence, Truth, Life, and Love with absolute certainty. This gnostic experience provides the unshakeable foundation for the ontological and epistemological framework necessary for the Theory of Everything and the science of Consciousness that many scientists and philosophers are searching for today.

Surviving Aids. What has happened to the predicted epidemic?
Linda Lazarides (England)

According to Farr's law, a new infectious disease spreads exponentially in an uninfected population. This has never occurred with AIDS, despite predictions. In the First World, it remains confined to the risk groups, predominantly drug abusers. In Africa, the World Health Organisation definition of AIDS requires neither an antibody test nor a helper T-cell count, merely fever, cough and diarrhoea for 31 days. 60 well-documented factors known to yield positive HIV test results include high levels of circulating immune complexes, passive immunisation, flue vaccination, and pregnancy in multiparous women. Laboratories may prefer to rely on risk factor questionnaires for diagnosis. HIV diagnosis leads to prescriptions for Zidovudine and protease inhibitor drugs to "delay the onset of AIDS". These drugs are not successful. Moreover they are severely toxic and can produce many of the signs and symptoms associated with immune deficiency, as can malnutrition and other factors associated with drug abuse and the African lifestyle. Recent research casts doubt on HIV's identity as a virus. This, together with refusal to take anti-AIDS medication as a common denominator in long-term survivors, would tend to support the "AIDS dissident" view that American/European AIDS is not an infectious disease but largely the end result of long-term drug abuse and other "fast-track gay lifestyle" factors, with or without malnutrition, aggravated by the toxic effects of anti-viral medication. If so, nutritional therapy to correct malnutrition and support liver function would seam to be an urgent treatment priority.

The Alternative School
Barry Mapp (England)
(On the need to put a New Heart and Head into Education)

Our education system consistently produces "products" with serious "flaws" ("failure" rate as high as 50%). This system must be challenged. If it were a business, it would have gone "bust" years ago. Science and medicine has colluded in a cover up of the system's flaws through the invention of new concepts ("diagnoses") pointing the blame at the child (nature) and away from the system (nurture). In this session, Barry will challenge current thinking about schooling; propose a new "sensible science" approach; and ask whether such an "alternative thinking school" has any chance of becoming mainstream. Barry will also show how all the current, political initiatives are compounding and not improving the system's problems.

Workshop
A New Head (as well as a new heart) for Science and Medicine

Society assumes that Science and Maths are disciplines based on numeracy, logic and reasoned thought; and takes "as read" that Medicine is based on proven and evidence-based practice. A new head with new thoughts (based on the ideas of W. Edwards Deming and others) can alter these assumptions, and demonstrate that the old head is actually both numerically and logically illiterate. The old head is illiterate of (1) systems thinking, (2) the nature of variation, (3) the purpose of theory and (4) the nature of human behaviour. In this participative and part-experiential session, Barry will model the "new head" and challenge "old head" thinking and logic.

Integrated Medicine in India
Issac Mathai (India)

India with a population of 1 billion has the largest number of systems of medicines officially practicing under the Ministry of Health. Namely modern medicine, Ayurveda - India's traditional medicine, Homeopathy, Naturopathy, Siddha - a south Indian herbal medicine, Unani - Arabic medicines, Yoga therapy and other tribal medicines. India's integrated medical facility is well accepted in the government service as well as the private sector. For example in the state of Kerala where the physical quantity of life index is highest compared with the rest of India. A small state at the southern tip of India with a population of 30 million, there are more than a thousand units of primary health centres run by the government for modern medicine and more than 500 units of homeopathic clinics and same number of ayurvedic clinics. People have the choice of getting any system of medicine under government service or in private care. There are thousands of homeopathy, ayurvedic, and allopathic doctors practicing privately in the entire state. There are 6 allopathic medical colleges with hospitals, 4 homeopathy medical colleges, 4 ayurvedic medical colleges with hospitals.

Our new integrated medical facility provides different system of medicine under one roof. The clinic integrates modern medical treatments with ayurveda, homeopathy, naturopathy, yoga therapy and different therapies like reflexology, aroma therpay, massage, acupressure, acupuncture, water therapy, mud therapy etc. Treatment given - depends on different diseases and conditions. The Clinic is a suitable model to demonstration, how effectively the integrated medicine can function. This centre is treating patients from more than 30 countries in various diseases.

Non-Dualistic Interpretation of Quantum Theory and its Implications for Biology and Medicine
Emilia Nesheva and Nikolai Neshev (Bulgaria)

Based on the quantum trajectories approach, a non-dualistic interpretation of quantum theory has been developed, allowing for parallel occurrence of free will and determinism. Applied in the case of biological regulation, it shows that coherent electromagnetic fields in living organisms are significant for selection of self-repairing structures with long lifetime. Intrinsic coupling of such fields with electric charge transfer is a basis of new preventive and therapeutic methods.

The Pattern of the World?
Sita Salamah Pope (Australia)

Doing fieldwork in Indonesia, Salamah came across a traditional cosmology, based on a Sufi version of creation, called the 'World Pattern'. As modern cosmologists and other scientists are looking for a Theory of Everything (ToE) and/or a holistic conceptual framework to promote inter-disciplinary correspondences, or 'Consilience' as E.O.Wilson terms it, she believes this specific cosmology would fit the bill.

The first part of the paper describes the pattern. Its overall format is a sequence of four emergent stages of process in three different states. Conceptually, these are: (i) a random whole; (ii) differentiates; (iii) a coherent, organised whole; finally spiralling back to (iv) another random whole, but here on a greater scale. Poetically speaking, the format of the pattern begins with an initial 'Chaos', goes through a stage of 'Separation', to 'Union', and thence 'Transcendence'. This formal pattern, as a skeleton, is simple enough to be applied to a very wide range of concrete things, perhaps everything from atoms to galaxies, and in the processes of human life and culture.

The paper will juxtapose the four traditional elements, Earth/Water/Air/Light, and the four levels of the Chain of Being, Minerals/Plants/Animals/Humans, with the structural skeleton of the cosmology. They will be shown to be isomorphic to it and to one another. Finally the paper will show some other concrete examplars from modern writers such as Jung, Erich Jantsch, A.N.Whitehead, and many others who have modelled Reality without being aware of the pattern's traditional existence.

How to Describe a Human Being. (Facilitated Workshop, participants do the thinking!)
Sita Salamah Pope (Australia)

In spite of anthropologists' insistence that 'human being' cannot be described, in this workshop participants will develop a heretical hypothesis: that, by following a simple methodology, we can arrive at a culture-free description of what is 'human'.

This workshop is based on two sets of ideas: primarily E.F.Schumacher's idea of the four classes of energies, powers or forces in nature - the human, the animal, the vegetal, and the material; and secondly, a traditional Indonesian cosmology [see above] to which these four forces appear to be isomorphic.

First: We shall look at, and list, the general differences between a rock and a plant.

Secondly: We shall look at and list the general differences between a plant and an animal.

Third: We shall look at the differences between an animal (say a primate) and a person, to arrive at a list of what are the specifically 'human' qualities.

The Dependence of Logical Thought upon Feeling
Horace Regnart (USA)

The idea that logical thought is superior to feeling, that logical thought is ordered and feeling disordered, goes back at least to classical Greece. It is with us still.

Random thoughts - daydreams - come and go unbidden, but they are NOT logical thoughts.

Logical thought does NOT happen randomly, but requires motivation, which is emotional.

Therefore in the physical world, logical thought is dependant upon emotion ie feeling.

In an accurate model of the physical world, logical thought must therefore be logically dependant upon feeling - ie (emotional) motivation.

Further implications are considered.

Walking Between the Worlds
Serena Roney-Dougal (England)

The pineal gland makes chemicals that are virtually identical to the ayahuasca tea used by the Amazonian shamans for out-of-body, clairvoyant and healing experiences. My latest research explores how these chemicals work, linking them both with our every night altered state of consciousness, dreaming, with the psychedelic state, and also with the experience Western culture calls a psychotic breakdown. People who have a similar sort of breakdown in cultures without a wage economy usually recover completely, or they may be seen as having a shamani initiation and become the shaman's apprentice, learning to harness their gifts and consciously, with complete control, walk between the worlds.

The Importance of Worldview for Wellbeing
Alex Reichel (Australia)

This paper touches on many current themes discernible in "Network". I see the essential healing and educational task as the growth, strengthening and objectivisation of the hidden self, enabling one to live spiritually and in depth. It is within the self-in-the-world that one's worldview exercises its global influence. For many today, mental disturbance and many other problems of human failure can be sheeted home to an inadequate worldview; a foreshortening of vision which inhibits the full flourishing of the human person. The insights of the objective self profoundly influence the nature of knowledge and wisdom. The insights of Rene Girard have opened up the anthropological and psychological importance of the Judeo-Christian scriptures, making some texts of St. Paul particularly relevant to a discussion of the objective self and the entities that can inhabit it.

Gateway to the Transpersonal in Art, Science and Education
Ed Sarath (USA)

While improvisation has been a central practice in most musical traditions in the world, and has also played a significant role at times in dance, theatre and other arts, it is generally marginalised in the academic study of these disciplines. In this paper I will argue that this is unfortunate, and that improvisation is, in fact a potentially rich educational resource due to its spontaneous, interactive and integrative nature. Improvisation unites intellect and intuition, raft and creativity, and ultimately an serve as a gateway to the transpersonal domain.

I will cite improvisers' descriptions of 'peak experiences', and then propose that inherent in improvisation is a mechanism - the way improvisers experience the flow of time - which triggers transcendence. The temporality - consciousness link not only bridges Buddhist - Vedantic views of transcendence with modern perspectives on temporal cognition, it also provides a framework for looking at improvisation from a cross-disciplinary perspective. I close by reflecting on how strategies used buy music improvisers to maintain optimal spontaneity might be appropriated to enhance creativity in the sciences, education and other disciplines.

Head and Heart in Dying: The Grace of Dying in Peace
Manec and Bart Van der Lugt (Netherlands)

In the Western World we deserve to be grateful for the technical possibilities with which we have enhanced the well being in the 20th century. However, by doing so we have separated mind and soul from the body.

The challenge and the goal for the 21st century is to focus our efforts now on embedding all these planes of consciousness into a larger whole. In that way we will endeavour to help one another and our offspring to pass over without fear, by entering a state of Love, the very power of the ultimate mystery.

During our presentation we will show you with our words, our poems, our drawings and slides how to attain love and peace during the dying process. It is the grace of dying and the liberation of the soul.

Individual/Society Dualism in the Use of Spirituality in Alternative Health Practices
Valerie Walkerdine and Lisa Blackman (Australia)

This paper contrasts two forms of practice using spirituality, those guided by an idea of self-development and those in which spirituality is part a social practice and resource used by oppressed and marginalised groups. In particular, the paper contrasts the use of spiritual healing by body workers with the self-help groups formed at the inception of the National Federation of Spiritual Healers and also considers a contrast between for example, NLP and practices used by the Hearing Voices Network and informal groups which form part of DIY culture (eg ravers, anti road protesters). What forms of the subject are incorporated in both forms of practice and how might an understanding of how the practices constitute subjectivity and spirituality help us to develop a different model of the place of spiritual practice within alternative medicine?