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I haven't been posting much lately, in part because I had computer problems that finally obliged me to get a new MacBook. But the other reason is that I find myself increasingly less interested in the endless back-and-forth of the survival debate. It seems that the same arguments are endlessly rehearsed, with Skeptics propounding some non-paranormal explanation for every NDE, OBE, apparition, past-life memory, and after-death communication ever reported, and treating each as if it were an isolated and rare event, while the pro-survival side comes up with more and more cases, only to be told that it's not enough (and even, according to some Skeptics, that none of it qualifies as evidence at all). Barring some breakthrough that will settle the matter once and for all, the debate, such as it is, appears likely to continue forever.
What does interest me these days is going beyond the empirical evidence, which has been aired pretty thoroughly on this blog and in countless books and on many other websites, and trying to formulate some kind of model that will make sense of things. Now, the first point to make about this is that it's an enterprise that cannot really succeed. What I mean is, no model is ever going to capture the full reality of what's going on. Any theoretical construct (much less a mere analogy or metaphor) will fail to encompass the complete range of the phenomena it's trying to cover. The menu is not the meal, the map is not the territory, etc. The value of a model is not that it is a complete or even an accurate representation, but that it can be useful. It is a way of organizing disparate observations into a more coherent whole. Its value is epistemological, not ontological; it can be an aid to thinking, even though it is by no means a perfect reflection of reality.
With that in mind, I'd say that the model that currently appeals most to me is the virtual reality model. I realize that this approach is open to the standard objection that we're just using the latest and most fashionable technology to conceptualize our world. As Newton's clockwork universe reflected the intricate clockwork mechanisms of his day, so we now turn to VR, the newest and coolest tech, to explain things in our time. This is true, but again, the goal is not to capture what is really going on, but to find a useful way of visualizing it. That being the case, it's not surprising that each new iteration of technology should provide us with new opportunities for metaphors and analogies. As long as we don't mistake the menu for the meal, we should be okay.
The virtual reality model is perhaps best summarized by words attributed to Roger Ebert shortly before his death: "It's all an elaborate hoax." Or perhaps by a well-known campfire song, which is more philosophically acute than most campers realize:
Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the stream
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Life is but a dream
Or by Prospero's soliloquy in The Tempest:
You do look, my son, in a moved sort,
As if you were dismay'd: be cheerful, sir.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
It has much in common with Plato's theory of Forms or Ideas and with his allegory of the cave. It also has points in common with the broodings of mystics throughout the centuries, and with the insights of all those who are said to have experienced Cosmic Consciousness.
For me personally, it seems the richest and most satisfying model — though again, only a model, and not even a fully developed one, as yet — of reality. So what exactly is the virtual reality model?
Basically, it's the view that earthly life is a fully immersive role-playing game. This game is designed by our higher self, with which we are in only tenuous contact while embodied. The game is meant to be challenging and instructive. The stakes are, in one sense, real — we gain real wisdom and personal growth. In another sense, the stakes are illusory —Ebert's "elaborate hoax." Our physical gains and losses are of no real consequence, and even our joy and suffering are transient and ultimately trivial, no matter how powerfully they may affect us here and now. What matters is what we take away from our travails. As Kipling wrote in his most famous poem, If:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'
The game is about winning and losing, but the real victories are those of the mind and spirit. Being embodied, we tend to forget this. And as might be expected, our immersion in the fully convincing virtual environment tends to become more complete over time, as we gradually forget whatever we knew of our origins. Children are known for not treating reality as fully real, blurring imagination and facts, and engaging in endless play. Adults usually grow out of all that. We settle in to our circumstances and become more firmly nested in the familiar "real world." Or as Wordsworth wrote in Intimations of Immortality:
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy,
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy;
The Youth, who daily farther from the east
Must travel, still is Nature's priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended;
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.
Those who don't quite grow up, the mystics and dreamers, are derided by those practical types who, having more efficacy in the workaday world, tend to dominate the action here. But while these hardheaded realists are on top now, they often prove least insightful and least spiritually mature, and they are not learning the lessons that matter most. Ultimately, the last shall be first and the first shall be last; unless you become like a small child, you will not enter heaven's kingdom; the only treasure worth having is spiritual mastery, which is the pearl of great price.
Life on earth is hard and painful. There is no getting around this fact. Dr. Pangloss's encomia to "this best of all possible worlds" simply do not ring true for most of us. The "problem of pain" has vexed spiritual seekers of all descriptions. Why would a loving God or a beneficent universe allow so much pointless suffering? The usual explanation, that original sin and plain old human cussedness are responsible, doesn't account for such purely natural calamities as earthquakes, tidal waves, and malarial mosquitoes. And even human-caused catastrophes like war and tyranny plague those who are innocent of any wrongdoing. So what's it all about?
Well, just how interesting or instructive would any role-playing game be if there were no obstacles, hazards, and challenges? We seek conflict and drama in movies and novels — why not in the ultimate fictional story we've devised, the story of our own lives? An author does not shrink from making things difficult for his characters; he knows that the more they struggle, the better the narrative. Our higher self, with a kind of pitiless creativity, lays traps and snares for us as we navigate the virtual environment of our personal drama. To us, it may seem like sadism, just as an animal may perceive nothing but hostile intent in the jab of the veterinarian's needle. It takes a higher intelligence to know that the pain of the injection is the necessary price of avoiding rabies.
Moreover, while the game is planned in some respects, it is not planned out in detail. The players themselves can and will make pivotal decisions, writing their own script, which may deviate significantly from what the planners had in mind. Sometimes our higher self will nudge us back on track when we threaten to go too badly off course; others times, we are on our own. Like children learning to walk, we have to be allowed to fall.
But the real answer to the problem of pain is that the game, however real it seems to us while we are immersed in it, is only a game, and a brief one at that. It's a cliche that as people age, they look back on their lives and wonder where the time went. All those years look like only a moment — a lifetime seems like little more than a waking dream. I think this perception is correct. It is only a moment, only a dream. When viewed from the perspective of the higher self (a perspective as alien to us as the perspective of Spaceland is to a Flatlander), all this Sturm und Drang is only the passing agitation of troubled sleep.
Better be with the dead ...
Than on the torture of the mind to lie
In restless ecstasy. Duncan is in his grave;
After life's fitful fever he sleeps well;
Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing
Can touch him further.
Life's fitful fever is the restless excitement of the chase, the urgent pursuit of elusive goals, the playing of the game. Our seemingly real world — our virtual reality — affords us endless opportunities to strive and suffer. By playing the game, we learn and grow, or we fail to learn and repeat the same self-defeating mistakes. Either way, "it's all an elaborate hoax," and to the extent that we see through it, we become better players — more focused, more aware, less fearful.
And when we lose the need to win ... we've won.
Though it's been mentioned in the comments, I'd like to call additional attention to Stephen E. Braude's reply to Tom Butler's criticism of his work with Kai Mügge. His detailed response can be read here. (It has been posted via Dropbox, but you do not need to have a Dropbox account to read it or download it.)
In contemporary parapsychology, Braude is one of the very few serious researchers into physical and materialization mediumship, areas that have historically been plagued with fraud and ambiguity. For several decades the Society for Psychical Research largely refused to conduct any investigations into such claims, having found that virtually all cases they did examine proved fraudulent. The credibility of mediumship in general was severely undermined by public exposures of fake mediums of the physical/materialization type, carried out both by enterprising newspapermen and by Harry Houdini. The decline of widespread public interest in Spiritualism dates to this period.
Accordingly, it's only common sense to approach the subject with a degree of skepticism (healthy skepticism, not dogmatic Skepticism). And it's essential to be honest and open about any findings, even if they might be harmful to the medium or to some larger agenda. At the same time, owing to the tricksterish nature of these phenomena, it's necessary to avoid jumping to conclusions or painting with too broad a brush.
This is a difficult balancing act, but Dr. Braude has managed it throughout his career. His ongoing investigation of Kai, whatever its controversies, is one more important contribution to this perplexing field.
A new website has been set up to display infrared videos, presumably taken surreptitiously, that show what goes on behind the scenes at one physical/materialization medium's seances. His name is Gary Mannion. (No, I'd never heard of him, but apparently he has a following in the UK.)
It's interesting stuff, and a reminder that books like The Psychic Mafia tell an important part of the story.
More disturbing than the videos themselves is the likelihood that a not-insignificant portion of Mannion's clientele will accept whatever explanation he comes up with — probably that a malevolent spirit possessed him and made him cheat, just this one time.
Roger Knights informs me that The Witch of Napili, Michael Schmicker's fictionalized account of Eusapia Palladino's mediumship, is now available for free as a Kindle ebook.
Stephen E. Braude has published a follow-up report on the Felix physical mediumship circle. The credibility of medium "Kai" (a pseudonym) took a hard hit when it was revealed that he had cheated in some earlier sessions. Braude discusses the cheating in detail, but also explains his reasons for thinking that Kai was still worth studying. Unfortunately the new investigation was inconclusive, and the hoped-for infrared video of table levitations was not obtained. Braude's balanced, scrupulously fair report is well worth reading (as is everything he writes).
Update: Actually I meant to say that clear, unambiguous IR video of a table levitation was not obtained. There was video of a purported levitation, but it was not the iron-clad evidence the researchers were hoping for.
A pair of neuroscientists tried to see if contemporary approaches to understanding the brain would allow them to successfully interpret a simple computer program — in this case, the vintage Donkey Kong game. They found that they were unable to learn much at all about the program, calling into question the efficacy of the current computer-based model for studying brain functions.
Some years ago I used to argue with a Skeptic on the comments threads of this blog about the evidence for life after death. One point he liked to make was that evidence for UFOs was at least as good as evidence for an afterlife, so why would I believe in one but not the other? At the time I could only say that I hadn't studied UFOs and had no opinion on the subject, an answer he found unsatisfactory.
I still haven't studied UFOs in any depth, but I've read a little on the subject. My tentative conclusion now is that, while many of the reports are hoaxes or errors, some are probably valid. It doesn't follow that UFOs are physical spaceships that have crossed lightyears to visit us. Scott Rogo in his book The Haunted Universe makes the point that there are often close connections between psychic phenomena (premonitions, etc.) and UFO sightings; his suggestion is that UFOs are in some sense a psychic phenomenon in their own right. Carl Jung and Jacques Vallee seem to have had a similar notion. My best guess is that legitimate sightings of "flying saucers" could involve a glitch in the system, a sort of information leakage from one plane of reality to another, perhaps triggered by, or at least accompanied by changes in consciousness on the part of witnesses. This is vague, but it's the best I can do. They are "real," but maybe not physical, or only transiently physical. This would account for the known tendency of UFOs to behave unlike physical objects— to wink in and out of existence, for example.
As for alien abductions, I would see them as out-of-b0dy experiences misinterpreted as events in the physical world. Many "abduction" experiences start out with a sense that the body is vibrating uncontrollably; then the body levitates off the bed and floats through the wall. This is identical to descriptions of OBEs. The only difference is that OBErs look down and see their physical body left behind, while "abductees" apparently do not. Both experiences also have much in common with shamanic vision quests and with drug-induced experiences involving ketamine and DMT.
Incidentally, I don't think it's actually true that evidence for UFOs is as good as evidence for life after death. The advantage of afterlife studies is that some can be performed under controlled conditions (e.g., scientific tests of mediums) and others can be performed prospectively (e.g., hospital and hospice studies of deathbed visions and NDEs). UFOs can be studied only in the field and only after the fact, on the basis of eyewitness reports and occasional technological evidence such as videos or radar readings.
As a companion piece to my post on Richard Carlson's work, here's an old post from October 11, 2008, covering a related approach pioneered by David Burns. Incidentally, there's now an app for this — in fact, there's more than one. For iOS, the iCouch CBT app works pretty well. For Android, the Cognitive Diary CBT app looks good, though I haven't tried it.
Carlson's method involves not taking your thoughts too seriously. Burns's method involves subjecting your thoughts to a reality check. The common denominator of both approaches is to distance yourself from your thoughts — to look at a thought from a detached perspective, rather than letting it control you.
Neither method is a cure-all, but both can be helpful in preventing a "thought attack" — a cascade of negative thinking that often has little basis in reality.
In these stressful days, you may find it useful to study the ten cognitive distortions identified by Dr. David Burns. I first came across these in Burns' self-help book Feeling Good many years ago.
The basic technique is to write down a thought that's troubling you, and see which of the cognitive distortions may apply to it. Then reword the thought in more objective terms. It can also be helpful to rate your belief in the original thought and, later, in the revised thought.
For instance, suppose you are thinking, "I'll never get that promotion." Your belief in this is, say, 80% - you're almost certain of it.
Then consider if one or more of the distorted thought processes is at work here. You might decide that #7 applies - emotional reasoning. And maybe # 5(b) - fortune telling.
Something may feel true without necessarily being true. And predicting the future is dicey business. How many times have you made a false prediction or had a feeling of doom that turned out to be unjustified?
Next, ask yourself if you can replace the thought with one that is not affected by these distortions. You might say, "It seems as if getting that promotion will be harder than I hoped." Rate your belief in this new thought - maybe you believe it 60% or so.
Now go on to the next step: why will getting the promotion be harder than you hoped? "Because the boss hates me." Write this down. You believe it 100%.
But are there distortions in this thought, too? Maybe # 5(a) - mind reading. Perhaps also # 3 - mental filter.
Have you focused only on those times when your boss has been hostile, and suppressed your memory of those times when he has been pleasant? Have you assumed he has a negative attitude toward you personally, when you actually don't know what he's thinking?
Revise your thought. Now it might be something like: "My boss can be hard to get along with sometimes." Rate your belief in this, and then ask why you feel this way. You'll come up with another thought to analyze.
Continue in this way, digging deeper into your thoughts in a step-by-step fashion, until you have arrived at a clearer perspective, one that is not clouded by distorted thinking.
This deceptively simple technique can be amazingly powerful. Give it a try.
One of the most useful books I've read is a little self-help manual called You Can Be Happy Matter What, by Richard Carlson. The book was written early in Carlson's career, before he became famous for a series of bestsellers beginning with Don't Sweat the Small Stuff. The later books never appealed to me all that much, but You Can Be Happy … remains one of my favorites.
Carlson's central insight is that you are not your thoughts. His teaching is both simple and profound. He suggests that most of us have the wrong relationship to our own thinking, and that this misconstrued relationship is responsible for most of our angst, depression, worry, and unhappiness in general.
What is this relationship? It is that we think our thoughts are important, when most of the time they are not. They are just thoughts. Thoughts come and go, and it is up to us whether to grant them any importance by focusing on them, examining them, and pursuing them further, or instead to simply let them go.
Suppose you are having a perfectly ordinary day when, for no obvious reason, a thought pops into your head: I really screwed up on that blind date. Maybe the blind date happened yesterday or maybe it happened ten years ago; it doesn't matter. The usual – but wrong – response to this thought is to drill down into it. Yeah, I just can't handle blind dates. Maybe that's why I'm so bad at relationships. I just turn people off. Face it, I'm going to be alone forever.
At this point, you've turned a perfectly nice day into an exercise in self-accusation leading inevitably to a bad frame of mind – probably either anger at yourself, anger at the whole world, or depression. Whatever you were doing a minute earlier seems pointless now, and whatever you had planned to do in the next hour suddenly doesn't seem worth doing anymore. You lie down on the couch, feeling low, and naturally you continue to explore the same thoughts and memories that have brought you down, thus spiraling lower and lower.
This is how most of us behave, at least a good part of the time. We grant our thoughts too much power. We think that there's something significant about them, and that when we take notice of a thought, it must require our immediate attention. We also tend to think that analyzing a problem, worrying at it the way a dog worries at a bone, circling around it to see it from every possible vantage point, will help us to find a solution. It doesn't occur to us that we've spent countless hours analyzing this or similar problems in that way, and all it's ever gotten us is frustration and misery.
So what is the right way to react to the initial thought about the blind date gone awry? Actually, the best way is not to react to it at all. Nor is it to instantly suppress the thought, as if guiltily shoving it into a mental drawer where it can't be seen. That's only another way of giving the thought power – making it so powerful that it must be hidden away like some kind of occult talisman.
The best way is to say yourself, I don't know why I thought about that. It's not worth thinking about now. Or some words to that effect. Then just dismiss the thought and go on about your business.
Though it may be hard to believe, this really works. The subconscious is extremely suggestible, and if you tell it that a certain idea is not important or interesting and certainly not worth bringing up, then the subconscious is much less likely to bring it up again. And the more you reinforce this policy, the less likely it is that the thought will even occur to you. Your subconscious can be trained to stop bringing you things you don't want, much like dog that can be trained to stop bringing you scraps from the garbage can.
Now you might say, What if I would actually benefit from taking a good hard look at my mistakes on the blind date? How else am I going to learn? And that's a valid point. But you're not going to learn anything by an exercise in recrimination and self-abasement. You'd be better off approaching the subject neutrally, when you're in the mood to tackle it without being too hard on yourself. And you're unlikely to get much benefit out of repeating this exercise countless times. Learn what you can from your mistakes, and then close the book on that subject and move on. If your subconscious keeps nudging you to return to this topic after you've gotten what you can out of it, then simply ignore the nudges.
Carlson tells us that nearly all of our emotional and interpersonal difficulties come from granting our thoughts a power they don't deserve. He calls the spiraling nosedive of negative thinking a "thought attack," and observes that these attacks are best handled by nipping them in the bud. Take note of the first negative thought, acknowledge it (don't try to hide it or suppress it), and then simply decide not to take it seriously right now. You can even schedule a time later in the day when you might be willing to take it seriously. Most likely, when that time arrives, you won't even remember it. If you do remember it, you'll probably be sufficiently detached to be able to look at it more objectively and usefully.
From my own experience, I can say that this is a highly effective technique. It's also easy to forget. You can quickly lapse back into old habits. The imagined power of your own thoughts can exert a seductive hold on your ego, a hold difficult to break. But it can be done. It takes a kind of mindfulness, a willingness to step back and look at the thought before committing to it – I mean before committing to even taking it seriously or thinking about it further. Most of the time, once you've taken a step back, you'll find the thought is not worth your time, and you'll dismiss it as effortlessly as you would brush a mosquito off your arm.
Incidentally, this is one of the objections I have to the New Age mantra "thoughts are things." I think this gives thoughts entirely too much reality and importance. It also encourages us to suppress (or repress) our thoughts, by investing them with a fearful power that makes them dangerous to look upon. The opposite is closer to the truth: "thoughts are nothing."
There are limitations to Carlson's method. Though he insists that our happiness is entirely a matter of our own interpretation and that outside circumstances have nothing to do with it, I think some outside circumstances are so dire that no amount of mindfulness, short of the otherworldly detachment of a Zen master, could make them bearable. If you're a prisoner in a concentration camp or the captive of a serial killer, your happiness is really not in your own control. But most of us, thankfully, are not likely to find ourselves in those circumstances. For the ordinary ups and downs of everyday life, the frictions and frustrations, the arguments and disappointments, Carlson's approach works extraordinarily well.
It also has a certain relevance to the whole question of the nature of consciousness. If we are not our thoughts, then what are we? Evidently we are the mind that looks at our thoughts and either investigates them or shoos them away. Which means we are something like "the witness" who habitually stands back from our thoughts and actions, observing and sometimes judging in an impersonal way.
Perhaps it is the witness who is fully real and accounts for the continuity of consciousness that persists across many changes of mind – changes of opinion, changes of knowledge, changes of mood, changes of psychological maturity, etc. When we regard ourselves as essentially the same person we were at the age of six, maybe what we are acknowledging is the persistence of the witness, the observer who is outside the ego with its changeable nature, its endless conflicts, its Sturm und Drang. We are the eye of the storm, and the I in the storm.
And when we get caught up in petty quarrels, ego-based rivalries, and counterproductive obsessions, we're forgetting our essential nature as the witness and becoming ensnared in a briar patch of thoughts that ultimately have no reality at all. We're like a spider that gets stuck in its own web.
At this point we've gotten a little bit away from Richard Carlson's book, so let me circle back to it by saying that my summary of his views is necessarily incomplete and, in itself, probably not very helpful. If it interests you, I suggest reading the whole thing. It's not a long or difficult read, and you just may find it helpful. I know I have.
I recently came across an article by Robert Lanza and Bob Berman, proponents of the "biocentric" theory presented in their book Beyond Biocentrism: Rethinking Time, Space, Consciousness, and the Illusion of Death.
The article, "There is no death, only a series of eternal 'nows'," argues that
biocentrism, in which life and consciousness create the reality around them, has no space for death ... [E]verything we see and experience is a whirl of information occurring in our head ...
Of course, as you're reading this, you're experiencing a 'now'. But consider: from your great-grandmother's perspective, your nows exist in her future and her great-grandmother's nows exist in her past. The words 'past' and 'future' are just ideas relative to each individual observer.
So what happened to your great-grandmother after she died? To start with – since time doesn't exist – there is no 'after death', except the death of her physical body in your now. Since everything is just nows, there is no absolute space/time matrix for her energy to dissipate – it's simply impossible for her to have 'gone' anywhere.
Think of it like one of those old phonographs. The information on the record is turned into a three-dimensional reality that we can experience a moment at a time. All the other information on the record exists as potential. Any causal history leading up to the 'now' being experienced can be thought of as the 'past' (ie, the songs that played before wherever the needle is), and any events that follow occur in the 'future'; these parallel nows are said to be in superposition. Likewise, the before-death state, including your current life with its memories, goes back into superposition, into the part of the record that represents just information.
In short, death does not actually exist ... And if death and time are illusions, so too is the continuity in the connection of nows.
The model is interesting, but I think at a certain point it fails. If we assume that the needle of the phonograph corresponds to consciousness, then presumably death corresponds to the moment when the needle is lifted off the record. But at that point the needle no longer can play any tracks on the record. Yes, the information encoded in the grooves remains, but it is inaccessible to consciousness. It might be seen as a store of information akin to the Akashic Records, but it would not be part of a dynamic, living personality.
At least, this is how I read it. It's possible, however, that I've misunderstood what the authors are saying. as best I can tell, if your life "goes back into superposition, into the part of the record that represents just information," then "you" are not actualized and, as such, "you" do not exist.
A more complicated but perhaps slightly more satisfactory model occurs to me. It involves holography. (Somewhere, Art is cheering.)
Image from Phys.org.
A holographic plate consists of wave-interference patterns that encode the information necessary to generate a three-dimensional image. Such a plate can be either reflective or transparent. A beam of focused light reflects off the plate or passes through it, creating, in either case, a three-dimensional projection. For our purposes, let's imagine that the plate is transparent.
The projection is fully three-dimensional, a fact that a spectator can appreciate only by circling around the image. From any given vantage point, only part of the image – one narrow slice of it, so to speak – can be seen. To take in the entire image, one must move around it, seeing first one side, then the front, then the other side.
Now let's say that this three-dimensional image corresponds to the entire content of the spacetime universe. And let's say that the spectator slowly making his way around the image and taking it in bit by bit in sequential fashion is egoic consciousness. What, then, is the beam of focused light? I suggest it can be analogized to the higher self, the larger consciousness of which the ego is only a small fragment or offshoot.
The higher self converts raw information into rendered images (using the word image in the broad sense to include objects that can be felt, smelled, tasted, etc.). The higher self sees the entire panoply of images as a single whole; the focused light of its consciousness pervades the entire spectrum of information, illuminating all of it. The egoic self, in contrast, perceives the hologram from one particular angle at any given moment; its movement along the axis of time creates the impression of change, as each new slice of (rendered) information comes into view and previously observed information moves out of view. The ego's point of view is narrow and limited, while the point of view of the higher self is omniscient, at least as far as the spacetime cosmos is concerned.
This is how things usually work, but occasionally the ego gets a glimpse of the bigger picture. In bursts of inspiration known as "cosmic consciousness," or in certain kinds of drug-induced visions, or in near-death experiences, or in death itself, the ego is – temporarily and partially – merged with the higher self. From this vantage point, the ego perceives the whole spectrum of rendered information all at once. The experience is overwhelming. It can be described as seeing the world from God's point of view, seeing and knowing everything there is, bursting free from the limitations of time and space, leaving Flatland to enter a higher-dimensional realm, etc. It can also be described as a "life review," in which all the events of one's life are reexperienced either simultaneously or nearly so.
In all cases other than actual death, the ego soon detaches from the higher self and is left once more with its familiar narrow perspective. But the memory of the transcendent experience never completely fades. It can provide the impetus for personal growth, religious or spiritual innovations, and even the development of psychic powers.
In death, the aftermath is less clear. Some would say that the ego simply dissolves into the higher self, while others would say that the ego detaches and continues its progress in an illusory replica of the spacetime world. The Tibetan Book of the Dead, among other sources, seems to suggest that the newly dead person can, with an effort of will, maintain the ego's merger with the higher self, but in the absence of this will (and the highly cultivated self-awareness it entails), the ego will inevitably retrogress. This opinion seems to be seconded by many channeled communications stating that the earthlike realms of the afterlife are ultimately illusions that must be transcended, and that the ego is progressively sloughed off as spiritual evolution proceeds. It is also borne out by the many postmortem communications strongly suggesting the persistence of the individual personality.
The end result, in either case, would be the (immediate or eventual) immersion of the ego in the higher self, which, standing outside time and space, is indestructible and self-contained. This would seem to be the ultimate destiny toward which we are all striving.
That's not to say that the higher self known to us is all that exists. It may well be the case – in fact, I suspect it is – that there are many higher selves, and that they ultimately comprise all of the consciousness there is; the sum total would be akin to what we call God, and the awareness of all these higher selves together would encompass many planes of reality, not just our physical plane.
The Next Big Thing appears to be virtual reality. Suddenly, VR headsets are being written up everywhere.
I was sufficiently intrigued to spend $15 on Google Cardboard, a VR viewer made of — yes — cardboard, which holds your smartphone in a snug little Velcro-tabbed flap and allows you to watch VR videos through two built-in lenses. The quality is not great (and why would it be for fifteen bucks?), but Cardboard does give you a taste of the VR experience. I watched a short documentary video via the free Vrse app; called "The Source," it concerned an Ethiopian village desperate for clean water. The image quality is not first-rate and the 3D effects are rather crude; figures in the foreground appear somewhat pasted on, like the images in an old stereopticon (or the ViewMaster toy from my childhood). But you do have a 360 degree view of the scene; turn your head and the point of view shifts appropriately. The experience was convincing enough to make me a little dizzy at times, and I was genuinely startled when someone abruptly appeared right "next to" me.
Even now, far more sophisticated VR gizmos are available, and naturally the technology will only get more realistic and affordable. It's not much of a stretch to assume that within ten years, and maybe much sooner, nearly everyone will be spending a certain part of his day plugged into an uncannily real virtual world.
All this has led my Facebook friend Ian, who occasionally comments here, to suggest that this trend represents, in part, an attempt to recreate the Summerland experience. I think he just might be right.
Image from a promotional video for the Oculus Rift VR headset
Summerland was a term coined by 19th century Spiritualists to designate the earthlike plane of spiritual reality to which most people gravitate shortly after they have died. Created out of the collective memories of the deceased, it feels as solid and real as physical reality does to the living. But unlike the earth plane, the Summerland environment is more directly under the control of consciousness, and some of its features can be creatively altered by an effort of imagination and will.
Because people at a similar level of spiritual development tend to flock together, Summerland is largely free of the conflicts and frictions that plague us on earth. And because it is a product of consciousness, it is an idealized environment - butterflies, but no mosquitoes; flowers, but no weeds.
If those of us who are currently alive retain any memory of a pre-birth existence, we may find ourselves unconsciously yearning for Summerland. This gnawing homesickness could be the basis of the persistent theme of paradise lost that resonates throughout world mythology. It may be why children, especially, are drawn to stories about magical kingdoms and happy endings. It may also be why some people become sad, even tearful, at the sight of a beautiful sunset or a scenic vista.
And it may help explain our urge to lose ourselves in a wondrous world of color and light, where nothing bad can happen to us no matter what adventures we embark on. For over a century, movies and television have exerted a hypnotic influence on millions of people (there's a reason Hollywood has been styled the Dream Factory); more recently, the entertainment experience has become interactive in the form of increasingly realistic first-person video games; and now VR is poised to take us to a whole new level of immersion in an unreal reality.
Some fans of the movie Avatar claimed to actually find it difficult to readjust to the real world after being immersed in the 3D (and sometimes Imax) world of Pandora. They said they felt sad and lost in mundane reality, and longed to return to the more colorful and exotic environment of the movie. Since Avatar arguably represents the highest technical and artistic level of 3D/CG imagery yet achieved, it's not too surprising that some people would get hooked on it. But VR technology will give us a vastly more immersive experience, one that makes even Avatar seem primitive by comparison. I will not be at all surprised if VR addiction (with its corollary: difficulty functioning in physical reality) becomes a leading issue in the next decade.
Imagine a fully immersive VR experience that is shared with thousands of other people via an online platform. Players interact with each other via avatars in a completely convincing 3D world. The environment has been meticulously designed to offer otherworldly beauty, dazzling variety, and total realism. The disagreeable features of real life are omitted, while the enjoyable aspects are abundantly available with no downside. In this world you can explore, study, party, fall in love, or just sit quietly on the bank of a babbling brook.
It sounds a lot like Summerland — the "heaven" that we may indistinctly remember. Maybe we are exerting our efforts as a society toward recreating that lost paradise so we can escape the travails of physical life and return to the place we came from.
But as Ian also observed in his Facebook post, Summerland is understood by Spiritualists to be a temporary place of rest and recuperation, a way station that prepares us for further challenges — either on higher planes or in a new earthly incarnation. If we should find a way to escape those challenges, are we missing out on the lessons that earthly life is intended to teach? Are we playing hooky when we should be in school, or going AWOL when we're meant to be in combat?
Or will VR serve, instead, to heighten our spiritual sense by reinforcing the idea that physical life is simply another drama played out for the ebenfit of consciousness — a "cosmic game," as Stanislav Grof described it? Will VR allows us to undergo shamanic vision quests without the need for ayahuasca, DMT, or peyote? Will it enable us to live a variety of alternate lives and have even more experiences (with concomitant opportunities for learning) than we can have now?
Perhaps the outcome will be mixed. Historical VR worlds may open us up to past-life memories, but also plant false memories of past lives. VR encounters with deceased loved ones may make some of us more accepting of a postmortem existence, while leading others to conclude that an afterlife is unnecessary. The convergence of physical and virtual reality may be liberating to some people and destabilizing to others.
I don't know. But I suspect that VR will be the next frontier in the expansion of consciousness and that it will take us in wildly unexpected directions. It may even take us home.
Years ago I posted a couple of essays on my author site called "Unusual Occurrences" and "More Unusual Occurrences." They were collections of mostly trivial and anecdotal synchronicities, coincidences, and premonitions from my personal life I still keep a record of such things in a journal.
Yes, I'm aware that they can be "explained" by the ever-helpful truism, usually delivered with condescending weariness, that in a universe of infinite possibilities, even very unlikely things are bound to happen now and then. How persuasive anyone finds this mantra is a personal matter. For me, it can explain a certain amount of strangeness in the world, but not an unlimited amount.
Anyway, within the last 24 hours I had two such occurrences, both very trivial, and I figured I would mention them here. They do not prove anything, but to me they are indicative of the everyday role that psi plays in our lives — a role so clandestine and marginal that we are usually unaware of it.
Yesterday I found myself thinking of a satirical variation on the nursery rhyme "Humpty Dumpty," which would begin, "Humpty Trumpty sat on a wall…" I thought this could be a clever dig at Donald Trump, but I was unable to complete the rhyme. Later that day I flipped through a copy of a magazine called The Week and came across this cartoon:
Political cartoon by Glenn McCoy, available online here.
At a different time yesterday, I was musing on old-time special-effects master Ray Harryhausen, and specifically thinking about the death pose of his creation the Cyclops (in The 7th Voyage of Sinbad), which is almost identical to the death pose of his earlier creation, the Ymir (in Twenty Million Miles to Earth). The fact that he chose almost the exact same pose for both models, which were built around the same (refused) armature, struck me as either a stylistic decision or an inside joke. Anyway, the first thing I saw on my Facebook newsfeed this morning was a post from a Harryhausen group with this photo:
That's the Ymir in its death pose.
Pure chance in both cases? Could be. I've been thinking a lot (in fact, too much) about Trump lately, and I've always been a bit Harryhausen-obsessed. But the specific parallels, right down to the fact that the Humpty Trumpty poem was unfinished in the cartoon just as I was unable to finish it in my thoughts, are suggestive to me.
As Goldfinger says in the movie named after him, "Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action." Rightly or wrongly, when things like this happen often enough, I see a pattern.
As a palette cleanser after our political kerfuffle, here's a book review that I originally posted on June 21, 2008. Happily it is Trump-free, though trumpets do make an appearance.
Arthur Findlay's On the Edge of the Etheric was first published in 1931. The used edition I purchased came out in 1970; it was the 66th printing in the United Kingdom. The book has been translated into at least 19 languages as well as Braille. According to Amazon.com, the book remains in print to this day.
Clearly, On the Edge of the Etheric has found an audience. And it's easy enough to see why. Arthur Findlay provides a convincing portrait of an otherwise little-known British medium, John C. Sloan.
Sloan appears to have been a man of high moral scruples. He accepted no remuneration of any kind for the many séances he conducted, preferring to maintain a regular 9-to-5 job to pay his bills. He practiced trance mediumship as well as direct voice and produced various physical effects such as levitating trumpets. He supplied a great deal of accurate and detailed information without prompting, often addressing sitters who were strangers to him and whose names he had never been given. He cooperated with sensible tests carried out to preclude fraud. Findlay reports putting his ear against the medium's lips while direct voice communication was in progress. Though the voice continued, there was no sound emanating from Sloan's mouth. On another occasion, Findlay heard a slight hissing sound from Sloan while the voice emanated from the center of the room some distance away. Sometimes two or three voices would talk at once. Sitters were able to identify deceased loved ones by their distinctive voices and by the specific, personal information that was conveyed.
There seems to be no possibility that Sloan used an accomplice, since his lodgings were typically searched before each session. Moreover, it would be hard to imagine any motive for an elaborate deception lasting for many years, even decades, when there was no money or fame involved. Sloan sought no publicity and would probably not be remembered at all if not for Findlay's book, which was published some years after the séances took place.
Findlay gives examples of Sloan's readings, classifying them as A1 and A2 cases. The A1 cases are those in which Findlay feels that fraud, telepathy, cryptaesthesia, and other non-survival explanations can be ruled out. In the A2 cases the evidence is not quite as clear cut but still highly suggestive.
In one instance, Findlay seems to misclassify a case. This is the second case listed in chapter 8. Here, Findlay reports knowing some details about a painting owned by a friend. At a later séance, a different friend was addressed by the direct voice, which said, "Tell your friend Dr. Lamond, 18 Regent Terrace, Edinburgh, that I am much obliged to him for keeping his promise and placing my picture on his mantelpiece." The name and address given were correct, but the friend knew nothing about the painting. Findlay writes, "This is another fool-proof case ... it being quite free from any other explanation than that the personality of [the painter] was present, and spoke. Otherwise how could such a message have come?" Of course, there is another possible explanation -- telepathy. Since Findlay himself knew all the details of the painting, it is at least conceivable that the medium read his mind. It seems odd that Findlay overlooked this obvious objection, and it does cast some doubt on how accurately he categorized the cases in general.
Nevertheless, the evidence he gives is quite persuasive overall. There seems little doubt that John C. Sloan was an exceptionally talented trance and direct voice medium who was immune to the blandishments of fame and fortune.
A large part of the book is taken up with an explanation of how séances are conducted "on the other side." How exactly is the direct voice manifested? According to Findlay, who asked this question many times during the séances and received detailed answers, some vital force known as ectoplasm is elicited from the medium and the sitters, and is then collected in a kind of bowl. Using this ectoplasm, the communicator is able to materialize his hands, which he then uses to create a masklike form. He presses his face into this mask until it coats his mouth, tongue, and throat. With this coating in place, the communicator's etheric body takes on the "heaviness" necessary to produce sound vibrations in the physical world.
Of course the concept of ectoplasm is difficult for many of us to accept; it is too reminiscent of cheesy Hollywood movies and the pronouncements of fraudulent mediums. But if materializations are possible, then presumably some kind of quasi-physical substance is involved, and ectoplasm is probably as good a word for it as any.
Another large portion of the book concerns the allegedly scientific basis for materialization and direct voice mediumship. Unfortunately, Findlay's argument is based on the now-outdated notion of the ether, a substance once thought to pervade the cosmos and serve as the medium for the propagation of electromagnetic waves. Findlay believed that the key to mediumship was understanding differences in the frequency of vibration of the ether. Indeed, many sources affirm that "vibrations" of some sort are critical in mediumistic communication. If there is no such thing as ether, then what is vibrating? As far as I know, there is no answer to this question (though The Unobstructed Universe, by Stewart Edward White, attempts to supply one -- as I recall, the book posits "vibrations of consciousness").
A minor impediment to accepting the phenomena Findlay describes is the nature of Sloan's spirit control, an American Indian named Whitefeather. As was all too common in séances of this period, Whitefeather spoke in broken English, using the cliché expressions of a B-movie Indian. It is hard to take this personality at face value, although Findlay does mention that, in life, Whitefeather knew no English and learned his English by participating in the séances. If true, this might suggest that the expectations of the sitters influenced the idioms used by the spirit control. In other words, perhaps Whitefeather spoke like an Indian in a penny-dreadful novel because that was how his audience expected him to speak.
Interestingly, another Indian communicator spoke flawless English. The explanation he provided was that he learned English in his earthly life.
Whatever the deficiencies of the spirit controls, the information that came through the séances is quite impressive. Findlay gives only a few cases out of the scores he witnessed, but these are highly convincing. Here is an abbreviated version of one of the best:
I took my brother with me to a séance shortly after he was demobilised from the Army in 1919. He knew no one present, and was not introduced. No one present, except myself, knew that he had been in the Army. No one present knew where he had been during his time in the Army. His health had not permitted him to go abroad, and he was stationed part of the time near Lowestoft at a small village called Kessingland, and part of the time at Lowestoft, training gunners ...
During the course of the sitting the trumpet was distinctly heard moving about the room, and various voices spoke through it. Suddenly it tapped my brother on the right knee, and a voice directly in front of him said, "Eric Saunders". My brother asked if the voice were addressing him, and it replied "Yes", whereupon he said that there must be some mistake, as he had never known anybody of that name....
[My brother] asked where he had met him. The answer was: "In the Army." My brother mentioned a number of places, such as Aldershot, Bisley, France, Palestine, etc., but carefully omitted Lowestoft, where he had been stationed for the greater part of his army life. The voice replied "No, none of those places. I knew you when you were near Lowestoft." My brother asked why he said "Near Lowestoft," and he replied: "You were not in Lowestoft then, but at Kessingland." ...
My brother then asked what company [Saunders] had been attached to, and, as he could not make out whether he said "B" or "C", my brother asked if he could remember the name of the Company Commander. The reply was "Macnamara." This was the name of the officer commanding "B" Company at that time. By way of a test, my brother pretended that he remembered the man, and said: "Oh yes, you were one of my Lewis gunners, were you not?" The reply was: "No, you had not the Lewis guns then, it was the Hotchkiss." This was quite correct, as the Lewis guns were taken from them in April 1917, and were replaced by Hotchkiss ....
[Saunders] told my brother he had been killed in France, and my brother asked him when he had gone out. He replied that he had gone with the "Big Draft in August 1917". My brother asked him why he called it the Big Draft, and he said: "Don't you remember the Big Draft, when the Colonel came on the parade ground and made a speech." This reference was to a particularly large draft sent out to France that month, and was the only occasion on which my brother remembered the Colonel ever personally saying good-bye to the men ....
About six months after the above incident my brother was in London, and met, by appointment, the corporal who had been his assistant with the light guns in his battalion at the time. My brother told him the above story, and asked if he remembered any man named "Eric Saunders"....
The corporal had brought with him an old pocket diary, in which he had been in the habit of keeping a full list of men under training, and other information. He pulled it out of his pocket, and together they looked back until they came to the records of "B" Company during 1917. Sure enough the name appear there, "Eric Saunders, f.q., August '17", with a red-ink line drawn through it; f.q. stood for fully qualified, and, though my brother knew the meaning of the red-ink line, he asked the corporal when it meant. He replied: "Don't you remember, Mr. Findlay, I always drew a line through the man's names when they went away. This shows that Saunders went out in August 1917."...
It is a remarkable case, as it is fraud proof, telepathy proof, and cryptaesthesia proof. Not only did no one present know my brother, but my brother did not know the speaker, and cannot even to-day recollect him, as he was passing hundreds of men through their training ... This case contains fourteen separate facts; each one was correct.


text:
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
Grand Union
The one-time Mountain guitarist set about inviting a heap of famous guitarists to play on his album, little knowing by the time it was released his world would have changed forever. Interview by Michael Heatley
Exactly 10 years ago, Mountain guitarist Leslie West looked across the Hudson from his New Jersey home at the unfolding horror of 9/11. Now he faces a much more personal yet devastating crisis, having lost a leg to diabetes. But with an all-star album to promote, West, 65, has all the incentive in the world to play live again.
'It's like putting your dick in the mouth of the devil,' he cackles in typically upbeat fashion. 'I don't think I have a choice. I did the album before all this happened; I'm sure I wouldn't have had any desire to go and record after it happened – but I'm really proud of it and it sounds pretty good. Maybe God looks out for us in strange ways.'
If all goes according to plan, West will be touring the US this autumn in the company of Michael Schenker and Uli Jon Roth. 'I might have a prosthetic [limb] by then. It's supposed to be mid-October, but you've got to learn to walk with it and I don't want to play on stage standing if my balance isn't right. But I do have this great chair I can play on – we'll work it out.'
His new album, Unusual Suspects, features a number of special guests. Toto's Steve Lukather is a friend of producer Fabrizio Grossi and, much to West's delight, showed up at the California studio by chance. 'I said "Steve, there's a part on one song – One More Drink For The Road, an acoustic boogie – that I cannot play in time and keep it smooth". He licked it in two seconds.'
Obtaining the services of Zakk Wilde was simple as he shares the same manager as Leslie, whom he affectionately calls 'Dad'. He plays on two tracks, the first being Nothin's Changed. 'When it comes to the first solo,' purrs a paternal West, 'I play it with a lot of air and space in between my notes. Zakk plays so fucking fast – fast but clean, there's no sloppiness in there – so when his comes in after me, my wife says it reminds her of a husband and wife arguing…. but we let each other finish before we interrupt!'
West had never met Slash, 'even though on the Guns N'Roses box set he'd thanked me for something. But he came to the studio, heard Mud Flap Mama and then said: "I don't know why you'd really need me on that track!" I told him I'd be the judge of that! I had the slide riff, we took the track down and the first solo is me. Then Slash comes right on my tail and I swear to God it sounds like a harmonica! It worked out really well.
'He called from Hollywood, where he was rehearsing, and said "I finish at six, I can go in the studio at seven or eight." I didn't want him driving all the way up to the Valley so we rented a studio a couple of blocks from where he was. I feel a tap on my shoulder, I turn around and there he is! A Les Paul, no entourage, no road crew, no groupies, just him. I was so impressed. His logo is that big hat and the mud flap girl: on the big lorries there are mud flaps behind the tyres, and usually they've got an incredible-looking girl on them. There's one on the new Leslie West Mississippi Queen guitar that Dean makes – it's supposed to be my wife, she looks like that. So that's what a mud flap girl is, and that was Slash's logo… I didn't even know.'
Billy Gibbons brought the idea for Standing On Higher Ground into the studio with him.
Gibbons' band got its big break opening for Mountain in the early '70s, but the pair trade licks here as equals and the ZZ Top man is right behind West's efforts to continue his live career. 'Leslie will, no doubt, bounce back with his unusually bionic blitz of guitarosciousness,' said Gibbons, adding: 'He will always be playing and standing on higher ground.'
Gibbons' band got its big break opening for Mountain in the early '70s, but the pair trade licks here as equals and the ZZ Top man is right behind West's efforts to continue his live career. 'Leslie will, no doubt, bounce back with his unusually bionic blitz of guitarosciousness,' said Gibbons, adding: 'He will always be playing and standing on higher ground.'
The next knock on the studio door came from Joe Bonamassa. Leslie had played on of one of his early albums, so it was time to call in the favour. 'He said, "You know, one of my favourite tracks of all time is [Eddie Boyd and Willie Dixon's] Third Degree by West, Bruce and Laing. So if you ever want to re-cut it…" It was just me and Joe, sitting in a control room singing and playing. The guy sounds to me like he was born black – his voice and his playing – so that worked out great.'
Zakk and Slash play acoustic on the album's last cut, The Party's Over, Turn Out The Lights, a Willie Nelson song. 'We're all on that,' West reveals, 'but we did it at different times. Sometimes at the end of the show I'd break into that song myself, so I thought it would be a good track to put as the closing number.'
Apart from hiring in a Marshall combo, Leslie used a Budda 30W amp and 4×12" set-up. 'The head is so efficient that I can't turn the master past 3,' he enthuses. 'It's like having a car that runs well on a small engine and uses less fuel than a Cadillac that gets two miles to the gallon.'
Three electric guitars made it into the studio, but only two came out in West's hands; he gave Slash a white two-pickup Dean as a thank you. The others were a 40th anniversary Leslie West made in honour of his iconic appearance at Woodstock and a Leslie West Flying V 'with the action up really high' he used for the rhythm slide part on Mud Flap Mama.
Leslie's unsure if he will be operating the effects live with his good left foot, or from a desk-mounted set-up. The late John Martyn, a fellow amputee, chose to play seated, but West has yet to take that decision. 'I think I can play just as good sitting. I may have to get up on a riser, so I'm at least equal to the height of the others!'
But he draws the line at Schenker's idea. 'He wanted me to sit there like Mahavishnu with robes on… I ain't doin' that!' Another devilish cackle rings across the phone lines. It's clear Mountain's main man is determined to scale this particular peak, with a little help from those unusual suspects.


text:
Tag Archives: books
Current Read: The Narrow Bed by Sophie Hannah
Current Read: "The Summer Before the War" by Helen Stimonson
The Summer Before the War is the fabulous followup to Helen Simonson's delightful debut novel, Major Pettigrew's Last Stand. The book tells the tale of an independent female teacher and the rigidly old-fashioned community who hires (and judges) her, blissfully ignorant of world events that will soon threaten their idyllic, Edwardian way of life. Somewhere between Lark Rise to Candleford and Downton Abbey, between antebellum and interbellum, is The Summer Before the War.
Muruch.com's Top 10 Books of 2015
10 John Furrow: The Storm Murders
9 Seth Greenland: I Regret Everything
8 Sophie Hannah: Woman With a Secret
7 Alice Fulton: Barely Composed
6 Michelle Penazola: landscape/heartbreak
5 Ron Rash: Above the Waterfall
4 Stuart Rojstaczer: The Mathematician's Shiva
3 Kate Morton: The Lake House
2 Amanda Palmer: The Art of Asking
1 Victoria Hislop: The Sunrise


text:
Android in Sight: MIPS Technologies Joins Open Handset Alliance
The Open Handset Alliance supporting the Android operating system has won a new member in MIPS Technologies.
MIPS Technologies out of Sunnyvale CA brings with it its Android on MIPS code as a new member of the Open Handset Alliance. The source code optimized for its own use is already available as open source. Some months ago MIPS Technologies had joined the Open Embedded Software Foundation, where it's also "working to define standardized Android-based platforms for consumer devices."
The source code for porting from Android to the MIPS32 architecture, a reference binary and documentation are on the company webpage.
Issue 26: Linux Shell Handbook 7th Ed./Special Editions
Buy this issue as a PDF
Mirantis to Refactor OpenStack Fuel for Kubernetes
The company is collaborating with Google and Intel to use Kubernetes as an engine for Fuel
Canonical Joins Document Foundation Advisory Board
The upcoming release of LibreOffice will be available as a snap package
SUSE Joins the Microsoft Test Drive Program
Customers can take a free test drive of SLES for HPC on the Azure Cloud
SiFive Launches a Line of Open Source Chips
San Francisco-based chip company announces their first fully open source chip platform.
Fedora 24 Released
The whole distro gets rebuilt on glibc 2.3
Canonical Announces Cross-Distro Support for Snaps
Ubuntu Vendor tries to solve app packaging and distribution problem across distributions.
ownCloud Forked
Founder of ownCloud launches the Nextcloud project.
HP Enterprise Unveils a Futuristic Computer
Will The Machine change the way future programmers think about memory?
CoreOS Announces Distributed Storage System
The new Torus distributed storage system is available under an open source license on GitHub
Google Beats Oracle in the Android Lawsuit
Juries decides Google's use of Java APIs Was Fair Use


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Suspect Returns $600 Python After Theft Video Goes Viral
Updated: 01/23/2015 - A stolen snake is returned to a Derby pet store. Store employees said social media helped spread the news of the theft, after KAKE News shared the story this week.
Updated: 01/23/2015 - A stolen snake is returned to a Derby pet store. Store employees said social media helped spread the news of the theft, after KAKE News shared the story this week.
Posted: 01/23/2015 - Sedgwick County Judge Richard Ballinger has died following a prolonged illness.
Updated: 01/23/2015 - A violent offender was arrested by the Kansas Apprehension Task Force Wednesday in Topeka.
Posted: 01/23/2015 - A mistrial has been declared in the sexual assault case of a man who knocked his attorney unconscious during the trial.
Posted: 01/23/2015 - A University of Kansas graduate was sentenced to three years in county jail for an accident that cost another student his legs.
Updated: 01/23/2015 - A pickup truck driver who officers believe may have been drunk left a lot of damage in an Oaklawn neighborhood Thursday night, to at least three homes and two cars, but no one hurt.
Posted: 01/23/2015 - Federal prosecutors say they will recommend a 20-year prison sentence for a Kansas man who's pleaded guilty to collecting images and videos of child pornography.
Posted: 01/22/2015 - With fewer Kansas Highway Patrol troopers patrolling the state's highways, the number of tickets and traffic stops also has dropped.
Updated: 01/22/2015 - A Wichita woman has been spared from prison after admitting she ran an escort service as a front for a prostitution operation.
Updated: 01/22/2015 - A hearing has been scheduled to determine whether there is enough evidence to try three Missouri men in a deadly robbery attempt at a Kansas gun shop.
Posted: 01/22/2015 - Topeka Police are looking for whoever shot up a vehicle parked in central Topeka Thursday morning.
Posted: 01/22/2015 - Emporia authorities say they have arrested three suspects connected to a recent armed robbery of a local woman.
Updated: 01/23/2015 - A Wichita high school student was taken into custody Wednesday for bringing a gun to school.
Posted: 01/22/2015 - On a bright, clear morning in April 2013, two professional poker players from California were heading west on Interstate 80 in rural Iowa when they were stopped by two Iowa State Troopers
Posted: 01/22/2015 - A federal investigation has not found enough evidence to charge Darren Wilson for depriving Michael Brown of his civil rights, according to multiple sources familiar with the probe.
Posted: 01/22/2015 - Twenty-six Kansas senators are pushing for legislation that will allow gun owners to carry a concealed weapon without a permit.
Posted: 01/21/2015 - 16-year-old Weston Hasty pleaded no contest in November to two counts of aggravated indecent liberties with a three-year-old girl. He was sentenced to 16 months incarceration.
Updated: 01/21/2015 - A small fire at the historic Sumner Elementary School appears to be intentionally set, according to the Topeka Fire Dept.
Posted: 01/21/2015 - The Jackson County Sheriff's Office has arrested Kenneth Max Ray Jr., 33 of Topeka, for felony theft of an ATV.
Updated: 01/21/2015 - Wichita Police say an argument over gang affiliation led to the shooting of a 15-year-old boy.
Updated: 01/21/2015 - Defense attorneys for a man accused of plotting a suicide bomb attack at a Wichita airport are not being allowed to see some classified evidence
Updated: 01/21/2015 - The retrial of a Lawrence man convicted of killing his wife will remain in Douglas County.
Posted: 01/21/2015 - A rural Leavenworth man will stand trial for first-degree murder in the shooting death of another man in 2013.
Updated: 01/21/2015 - A southeast Kansas woman pleaded guilty to shooting her estranged husband to death two years ago at her father's home.
Updated: 01/21/2015 - The growing online trend of revenge porn is when someone posts nude photos of exes without their consent as a way to get even. And it's legal in Kansas.


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Best credit card for my situation
My fico is 680 I have 1 loan on my report for $2,550 that was paid in full 5 years ago no late payments. I have 1 store credit card with $650 credit limit and $24.00 charged on it, this account is less than 3 month old and of course this account has no late payments.
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Augmented Reality App
Lets You "Paint" Instantly &
Share Your Spirit!
Makeup Genius
By Image Metrics
For L'OREAL
Wins CLIO Awards!
TURNED Breaks Into
Top #100 Apps
Zombie Fans LOVE It!
Image Metrics' Top App
Makeup Genius
+25 million downloads
See How Image Metrics Powers
Faceware Technologies
Image Metrics Facial Technology
Dazzles Users
Unleash Your Inner Fan With Augmented Reality NCAA Team Colors!
Image Metrics and Nissan have partnered to let you unleash your inner fanatic! Paint your game face with Image Metrics' Die Hard Fan app! Choose your college team and favorite design, and instantly "paint" on your game face. Share with a picture or video!Select Your Team
Virtual Reality Partnership Will Change The Way You Define "Virtual"
Image Metrics and Sine Wave Entertainment are pleased to annouce a partnership with plans to create the most immersive social experiences in the virtual reality industry. Using Oculus' virtual-reality equipment and Image Metrics' proprietary technology, the companies will integrate true-to-life facial animation into Sine Wave Entertainment's virtual reality worlds.
Sine Wave Entertainment CEO Adam Frisby remarks, "the way I envision users using this technology ultimately is going to be where we can make it a de facto system for highly immersive social environments. This gets us another notch closer to 'being as good as there' when talking to someone online – it has potential for both social & commercial uses."
The initial release to the virtual reality worlds is set for late August to over 2 million existing users. The companies anticipate that the user base will grow exponentially as they launch beyond desktop platforms and onto mobile platforms.
Image Metrics Killing It With Zombie App
TURNED Breaks Into The Top #100 Apps – Zombie Fans LOVE It!
TURNED, a first-of-its-kind real-time zombie augmented reality experience, is receiving rave reviews across social media and with fans. TURNED zombie app allows users to try on and record life-like zombie facial special effects in real-time. Users can select from different zombie masks or create their own zombie using the facial tools within the app.
TURNED gives survivors and zombies photo real facial special effects which move with your facial features in real-time. Record and send videos to social media as you battle the zombie apocalypse. Join the uprising by posting to the public gallery and watch outbreak taking hold in real-time.
The technology once used exclusively for Hollywood special effects is now available to users anywhere, anytime with this innovative zombie app.Join The Uprising
Ron Ryder, Image Metrics CEO, Chairs International Beauty and Technology Summit
Image Metrics CEO, Ron Ryder, recently served as the 2015 Chairperson at the China International Make-Up Summit held June 11 and 12 in Shanghai, China. As a world-recognized Makeup Marketing expert, Mr. Ryder moderated the June 12th sessions and shared insight to the technological power behind Makeup Genius, and the role of Image Metrics in this revolutionary 8 million user downloaded app.Read About the Summit
L'Oreal Executives Discuss Digital Innovation at Annual Financial Information Meeting
"Makeup Genius is a real beauty advisor in our consumers' pockets, bringing a level of service never seen before in our channel. Result: more than 6.3 million downloads. Delivering a personalized service at mass scale will definitely reinforce our CPD business model. We intend to take full advantage of this historical opportunity to give close service and a closer connection to our consumers on all our brands."
-Marc Menesguen, L'Oreal President, Consumer Products DivisionSee more
Photo-Real Emotion Capture
Faces are the most recognized conduit of emotion. Stories are told and sold through human performance and skilled digital artistry. Image Metrics technology solves the most complicated challenge of creating believable facial animation.
It's about a perfect balance of art and technology. We leverage robust algorithms that understand the many intricacies of facial composition and movement from our years of experience producing digital entertainment.See groundbreaking photo-real EMILY project
Makeup Genius is Transforming the Makeup Industry
- Location: Cannes Film Festival
- Partners: L'Oreal Paris and Image Metrics
- Players: Celebrity Ambassadors
Facial image mapping technology takes the cosmetic world by storm. Makeup Genius skyrockets to one of the Top #5 Apps on iTunes within days and L'Oreal announces record sales.Learn more about Makeup Genius
Clichy, 9 March 2016 – L'Oréal Paris and Image Metrics are very proud to announce they have entered into a new phase of their partnership regarding the augmented reality app Makeup Genius. Launched in 2014, to critical acclaim, Makeup Genius is a mirror that relies on innovative technology – developed…
BARCELONA–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The GSMA today congratulates all winners of the 2016 Glomo Awards, which were announced during a series of ceremonies and live TV presentations throughout the week at the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Awards hosts TV presenters Suzi Perry and Ortis Deley revealed the winners on Mobile World…
Jennifer Jolly, Special for USA TODAY The scariest part of Halloween these days might just be how much we're all spending on it. American's are shelling out nearly seven million dollars for all the costumes, candy, decorations and parties this year. If the high cost of it all gives you…
September 18, 2015 Fanfare please…Makeup Genius is proud to announce a shiny new Gold CLIO Award to add to the symphony of international accolades. Additionally, the app received a Silver CLIO Award for Direct Product & Service. With the strategic alliance of innovative technology developed by Image Metrics, L'Oreal Paris has cornered the…


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Edit Article
How to Acclimate a Fish
When you are first learning how to acclimate a fish in a new aquarium or bowl, there are several steps you must take to ensure a smooth transition from the carrying container to the fish's new home. If not done properly, moving a fish can result in injury or trauma, so you must make the process as easy and stress-free as possible.
1Before buying any new fish, properly cycle your tank with established good bacteria. You want to make sure your tank water is fully cycled to avoid ammonia spikes and algae blooms. Cycling can take anywhere from a few days to a few months, depending on the size of your tank.
2Bring a paper bag or carrying container with you to the pet store when you go to pick out your new fish. Most fish are sensitive to light, and moving the fish from indoors to outdoors or one light source to another can be shocking. Once your fish is placed into the store's clear plastic bag, put the plastic bag into the carrying container.
3Remove your new fish away from direct sunlight or away from your vehicle's heating or cooling source on your way home from the store. These heat sources will cause the water's temperature to fluctuate much faster than the fish can handle.
4Turn off aquarium light and dim the lights in the room where your fish's new aquarium is located. Do this before you remove it from the carrying container, since fish are sensitive to light and may be traumatized by a sudden change in lighting.
5Turn off aeration and air stones in your tank to make sure oxygen levels don't fluctuate in the bag. Strive for a stress-free environment while acclimating your new fish.
6Open the carrying container or bag of your new fish, and carefully remove the plastic bag. Keep plastic bag unopened. Be careful not to jostle the fish or the container, as this may cause injury or undue stress.
7Touch the outside of the bag of water the fish is in. You should do this to determine what the water temperature is compared to the water you will place inside your aquarium or bowl. Do not open the plastic bag right away. The most important thing in the fish's health is providing enough oxygen, and if you open the bag you will release the fish's oxygen supply.
8Place the unopened bag, including the fish and the water it came in, inside your fully cycled aquarium. Let the bag float on or just below the surface of the tank water, acclimating the fish to the tank water. The process should take 30 minutes.
9Open the fish's carrying bag, and pour some of the new tank water into the bag. Wait 1 or 2 minutes, and add a little more. Continue repeating this step until the bag the new fish is swimming in is filled mostly with aquarium water. When this is accomplished, let the fish rest in the bag for 15-20 minutes.
10Open the bag completely, net out your fish and place it gently into the aquarium. Do not mix in water from the bag into your tank as it may carry unwanted parasites or disease.
Community Q&A
Unanswered Questions
I already have a betta fish in a 2.5 gallon bowl and want to add a heater to it. It is a preset heater so I don't have to do anything with it. But I was wondering if it is heating up slowly can I leave my fish in his bowl?
Ask a Question
- If you are introducing your fish to an existing aquarium that already has fish, keep your new fish separate for a couple of weeks before moving to make sure it's healthy before adding it to your collection.
Things You'll Need
- Paper bag or container
- Fish in plastic bag
- Tank
- Fresh water
Sources and Citations
Article Info
Categories: Fish | Fish Health
In other languages:
Español: aclimatar peces, Italiano: Acclimatare un Pesce, Русский: акклиматизировать аквариумную рыбу, Português: Aclimatar um Peixe
Thanks to all authors for creating a page that has been read 129,661 times.
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Launched in October 2005, Feelunique is one of Europe's fastest growing online beauty retailers bringing you outstanding value beauty, grooming and health products straight to your door for free!
Ratings guide
All Feefo reviews are gathered anonymously from genuine customers. Read more about how our review system works.
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Always speedy efficient service
Really fast delivery
Excellent product for my teenage son, I will be back for more.


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The library will be closed on Easter Sunday, April 20th, and on Patriots' Day, April 21st.
On the 21st, the Minuteman Library System will be unavailable due to a system upgrade.
During this time it will not be possible to search any of the Minuteman Catalogs or to access My Account.
Statewide databases will be available at: http://libraries.state.ma.us/catalog/
The Digital Media Catalog (eBooks and eAudiobooks) will be available at: http://digital.minlib.net/
Regular hours and services will resume on Tuesday, April 22nd.


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Share your experiences with the 35th Harvest Homecoming Bicycle Tour below Back to event details page.
This was a really fun event. The only complaint I have is that lunch was supposed to be served until 4pm, however, there was no pizza left by 2:20pm. Riders finishing the 65 mile route were left with a bag of chips to replenish with. VERY poor planning. I'm not really sure why nobody thought to order some more once they realized it was getting low. Nourishment after a long ride is very important and the planners of this even really dropped the ball on that one.
ACTIVE is the leader in online event registrations from 5k running races and marathons to softball leagues and local events. ACTIVE also makes it easy to learn and prepare for all the things you love to do with expert resources, training plans and fitness calculators.