Science of the SpiritS


People 2

Researchers find not sharing dishwashing duties is most likely way to damage a relationship

couple sharing dishwashing
Sharing out the dishwashing duties more fairly could be one of the best ways to improve a relationship, new research suggests. Out of all household chores, (not) doing the dishes is the most likely to damage a relationship.

Women in heterosexual relationships who did more dishes than their partners reported:
  • Lower relationship satisfaction,
  • more relationship conflict,
  • and worse and less sex.
The study looked at different household tasks including shopping, cleaning and laundry. It revealed that there is something particularly irritating about doing the dishes.

Bulb

Jordan Peterson's view on Cain and Abel

Spurred by social comparison, Cain and Abel represent rival responses to the suffering inherent in the human condition following the rise of self-consciousness. Abel's suffering leads to his self-development as a warrior. Cain's suffering leads to envy, malevolence, and murder. This essay explicates and develops Peterson's interpretation of the story.
Cain and Abel
In his "Biblical Series V: The Hostile Brothers" and in his international best seller 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, Jordan Peterson provides a rich interpretation of the story of Cain and Abel. The archetypal brothers both suffer, but their radically different responses to their suffering represent perennial human options.

After becoming self-conscious and leaving the Garden of Eden, "Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, 'I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord'" (Genesis 4:1). Cain is not just the first-born son, Peterson notes, but the first-born human being.

People 2

Spirit release therapy: The case of Clara

doorway enter the light
Alan Sanderson is a psychiatrist specializing in hypnotherapy, who has become an advocate of spirit release therapy - a technique by which a hypnotherapist communicates directly with spirit entities purportedly harassing a patient. One of his cases, dating from 1995, involves a patient he calls Clara. He has written about it at some length in an article called "Clara - Spirit Releasement Therapy in a Case Featuring Depression and Panic" (European Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, April 4, 1998). He also alludes to the case in a more recent article, "Spirit Release in Clinical Psychiatry - What Can We Learn?" (2014) Here I want to present an abridged version of the case, relying primarily on the first, more detailed article. (All quotations are taken from the 1998 paper.)

What intrigues me the most about those case are its obvious parallels to numerous case histories recounted in Carl Wickland's 1924 book Thirty Years Among the Dead. (Clicking this link automatically downloads a PDF to your downloads folder. The book can also be purchased at Amazon.) Wickland used a medium (his wife) to contact the spirits, while Sanderson uses hypnosis. But the resulting dialogues are strikingly similar.

Sanderson notes that "possession" cases, as studied by himself and other researchers, can involve a wide variety of conditions, including phobias, addictions, and depression. "The great majority of these cases lack a subjective sense of possession. While the patient may have the feeling of spirit proximity, for instance that a deceased relative has been close by, the identification of a spirit presence usually comes as a surprise." In other words, we're not talking about dramatic, obvious "demonic" behavior or manifestations a la The Exorcist. (I'm not sure I would use the term "possession" for these cases; "obsession" or "harassment" seem like better words.)


Comment: The idea that spirits can 'possess' humans - and that these possessions can be responsible for a variety of behaviors and mental illnesses - has been a widespread folk belief. But the belief in scientific materialism has all but wiped it out from common medical theory and practice. But this is irrational. Even if one does not believe in the existence of such 'spirits', it's rational to act as if they do exist - if doing so has some practical value. For whatever reason, such phenomena present as - and are experienced as - independent beings. If they are in fact or not, that's just the reality we have to deal with it. And it's probably healthier to deal with it than to just pretend it doesn't happen.


He finds Clara's case to be of particular interest "because the patient's complaints of depression, anxiety, headache and panic are common symptoms and the picture in no way resembled that of the popular concept of possession." He tells us that Clara had no longterm history of mental problems or psychiatric treatment, was raised in a stable family, and reported a normal childhood. By the time she came to him, however, she was seriously depressed, drank and smoked heavily, and had gained more than twenty pounds in a few months.

Heart

Shivers down the spine: Why we get the chills when we aren't cold

goosebumps
© Courtesy Rex Features/Paramount
A few years ago, I proposed that the feeling of cold in one's spine, while for example watching a film or listening to music, corresponds to an event when our vital need for cognition is satisfied. Similarly, I have shown that chills are not solely related to music or film but also to the practice of science (mainly physics and mathematics) and to the social logic of religious rituals. I believe that chills and aesthetic emotions in general can teach us something that we do not know yet. They can help us to understand what truly matters to the mind and to the society of minds.

When cold or sick, humans shiver. Shivering is a muscle tremor that produces heat which allows the body to maintain its core temperature in a changing world. Human core temperature can vary temporarily between about 28 to 42 degrees Celsius. Outside these thresholds, death occurs. Humans also shiver in the case of a fever, as heat slows down the rate of pathogen growth and improves the immune response of a living body. Goosebumps or piloerection (the bristling of hairs) can be side effects, as the muscle tremor causes hair to become erect which creates a thin layer of air, thus minimising heat loss. Strangely enough, humans also shiver independently of any such events. For instance, certain social situations seem to provoke the shivers.

People 2

The 2 personality traits that indicate high intelligence

intelligence, High IQ
Introverts who have more stable personalities have higher levels of general knowledge, research finds.

These two personality factors, along with being open to experience, predict people's general knowledge.

General knowledge - or as psychologists call it, crystallised intelligence - is one of two broad aspects of intelligence.

General knowledge is often linked to success in life because innate talent is not enough - application matters.

The other type is called 'fluid intelligence', and refers to abstract reasoning and the speed at which the brain works.

People 2

Negativity is one of the most powerful relationship killers

Sad woman
Researchers looked at the effect of negative events such as losing a job, the death of a loved one or financial problems.

Negativity is one of the most powerful relationship killers.

Reducing negativity is the key to getting through tough points in a relationships, new research finds.

Small negative gestures in a relationship are much more powerful than positive actions, psychologists have found.

Bulb

The strong personality trait that is linked to empathy

Empathic people
Empathic people are likely to have this personality trait.

People with the personality trait of agreeableness are more likely to be highly empathic, research finds.

Agreeable people tend to be friendly, warm and tactful - always taking into account other people's feelings.

Interestingly, the study also found links between empathy and being neurotic, although neurotic people were more focused on themselves, while agreeable people focused on the other person.

Comment: More on the trait that speaks to our humanity:


Snakes in Suits

Study finds narcissists' 'heightened sense of self-worth' gives them a 'mental toughness' to succeed at work, in love and education

narcissist
© rgb fotografie/ Global Look Press
They are generally disparaged in society because of their stubborn self-involvement and vanity, but it turns out narcissistic people are likely to be more successful, a new study reveals.

According to an international research project led by Queen's University Belfast, narcissism - which is considered part of the "dark triad" of personality traits alongside Machiavellianism and psychopathy - is associated with success at work, in love and education.

The research found their "heightened sense of self-worth" gives narcissists a "mental toughness" that drives them to success. "If we could abandon conventional social morality - and just focus on what is successful," then narcissism can look like a very "positive" trait, Dr Kostas Papageorgiou said, the BBC reports.

Comment: The researchers are coming very close to seeing narcissistic personality disorder as a positive trait. There are any number of mental contortions one can do to turn narcissistic behavior into a positive, but that doesn't mean that it IS a positive. The researchers should talk to all the people whose lives have been negatively affected by a narcissist and ask them if it's a "positive" behavioral trait.

The most likely reason narcissists are successful is because they have little trouble hurting others in order to advance their own interests. The problem is, the vast majority of people do not feel comfortable acting in such a way, and it is because of that that humans have not torn each other to pieces yet.

There are much better methods than acting narcissistically for training oneself to be mentally tough. It doesn't require a selfish desire to win to be that way.


Phoenix

Activism without working to understand yourself is not of any real value

meditation
© Toshimasa Ishibashi
Have you ever known someone who's intensely interested in helping people, but is so neurotic and unskillful that they mostly just make things worse?

"Stop!" you'll find yourself wanting to yell at such people. "Stop helping! Go help yourself!"

That's how I see most political activism today. So many well-intentioned people who want to help, and are so crazed by mass media psyops and cultural mind viruses that their energy seemingly goes everywhere but where it needs to. I'd like to say a bit about that here, if you'll indulge me.


It's really weird how many people in the political circles I move in are still running pretty much the exact same programs they were running in 2016. There are still former Berners acting like Hillary Clinton is the single greatest threat to America despite her being more or less irrelevant in 2018. There are still leftists and anarchists acting as though small neo-Nazi groups present a greater existential threat than the mainstream neoliberal neoconservative Orwellian power establishment. There are still liberals running the same "OMG TRUMP NAZI LITERALLY HITLER WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE" script despite overwhelming evidence showing that the most evil things this administration has done are all extensions of Bush and Obama administration policies. There are still anti-interventionist Trump voters doing everything they can to compartmentalize away from the undeniable fact that this president is continuing and expanding the interventionist policies of his predecessors.

Even if you had a crystal clear understanding of what was happening in US politics in 2016, continuing to perceive through the lens of that same understanding today is blindness. And the more the world continues to change (and change it always will), the more blind you will be if you continue to apply your 2016 worldview to it.

Comment: Although a tall order, working to understand your mental processes and how unconscious biases affect your thinking is key to be being able to correctly assess the world around you. It involves a lot of hard work and questioning many things you might have taken for granted or believed in but in the end, you make better decisions and allow you to contribute to society in a truly positive way. Aside from The Righteous Mind, couple of other great books on the subject are: See also:


Brain

The holonomic brain: the holographic nature of consciousness and reality

Fractal broccoli
Fractal Broccoli
Holograms come in many shapes and sizes, and for the most part, people are at least superficially familiar with the concept of holograms, but this is mostly reserved for the realm of fun eye candy and artistic works. However, if one was told that the world around them, and in fact they themselves are holographic, it would be brashly dismissed as ludicrous dribble. Well, I'm proposing precisely such an absurdity, and I seem to be in good company.

Consciousness is the driving force behind the manifestation of form within this holographic matrix. This hologram has close relations with fractals, and a lot of times, the hologram of existence is usually referred to as a fractal hologram. However, what is a fractal, and ultimately, what is a hologram?

A fractal is a mathematical set whose constituent parts become increasingly detailed according to a fixed exponential formula, revealing recurrent self-similar properties as it is observed on a smaller and smaller scale. In other words, the initial object that one observes, when orienting one's point of view closer and closer to the object, reveals the existence of a pattern within it. That pattern is constructed of a grouping of smaller patterns, with parts the same shape of the initial larger object, and are then made up of still smaller versions of the same pattern. This "bottomless pit" rendering of patterns can technically extend to infinity, eventually revealing that the initial object or image was never really made up of anything. Therefore, what one sees with their conscious eyes is a hologram - an object that appears to take the form of something due to hidden "information" within it. In other words, something that is an illusion; an illusion that has the appearance of properties that it really does not have.

Comment: Karl Pribram speaks about the Holonomic Brain Theory: