Author Archives: marcia

Bank Spying on You?

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Spy on Your Customers … or Else

September 18, 2015

Freda-Digital-CreepsBy Mark Nestmann

Do you distrust the banking system? Prefer to do business in cash? Complain about the encroachment of Big Brother into every facet of your life?

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you’d better watch out. You’re a “person of interest” – and a growing number of businesses must report your “suspicious activities” to the feds. If they don’t, they can be fined and the responsible parties even imprisoned.

These requirements originated in a law called the “Bank Secrecy Act” (BSA). Of course, this Orwellian law has nothing at all to do with protecting bank secrecy. Indeed, the BSA has all but eliminated confidentiality.

Regulations issued under the BSA require financial institutions to notify the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), a Treasury Department bureau, of any unusual transactions in which their customers engage. Reporting is mandatory for transactions that exceed $10,000 and are not the sort in which the particular customer would normally be expected to engage. For money transmitter businesses, a $2,000 threshold applies.

The businesses covered by these requirements must file “suspicious activities reports” (SARs) secretly, without your knowledge or consent. FinCEN makes the reports available electronically to every US Attorney’s office and to dozens of law enforcement agencies. No court order, warrant, subpoena, or even written request is needed to access a report.

What exactly is suspicious? According to official Treasury guidance, suspicious behavior includes:

  • Paying off a loan;
  • Objecting to completing Currency Transaction Reports (required for transactions over $10,000);
  • Changing currency from small to large denominations;
  • Buying cashier’s checks, money orders, or travelers’ checks for less than the reporting limit ($10,000 for a cash transaction);
  • Making deposits in cash, then having the money wired somewhere else; and
  • Withdrawing cash without counting the cash first.

Now, FinCEN has issued preliminary regulations that could extend these rules to investment managers. All SEC-registered investment advisers would be required to design and implement an anti-money-laundering program. They would also need to file SARs with FinCEN.

Once these rules come into effect, investment advisors would no longer be accountable to you, their client. Their highest duty, reinforced by civil and criminal sanctions, would be to act as unpaid undercover agents for the US Treasury.

But FinCEN’s suspicious transaction reporting rules are just the tip of the iceberg. For instance, official guidance from the FBI and other government agencies indicate that all of the following actions make you a terror suspect:

Then there’s the “drug courier profile” developed by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). The following profiles are all court-approved reasons to search you and your property:

  • Having a pale or dark complexion;
  • Having a Hispanic appearance;
  • Being between the ages of 25 and 35;
  • Acting too nervous or too calm;
  • Carrying $100, $50, $20, $10, or $5 bills;
  • Wearing casual clothing;
  • Wearing perfume;
  • Having window coverings on your personal residence;
  • Buying a one-way or round-trip airline ticket; and
  • Being among the first, last, or middle group of passengers off of an airplane.

As Richard Miller expressed in his landmark book, Drug Warriors and Their Prey,

[B]eing a citizen is sufficient cause to suspect a person of criminal conduct, thereby constricting civil liberties protections for that person. That situation is hard to distinguish from the legal status of citizens of Nazi Germany.

In a world that views virtually everything you do as suspicious, there aren’t a lot of options to protect yourself. Indeed, simply by expressing your interest in privacy, asset protection, precious metals, or any of the other topics I cover routinely, you’re likely on one government watch list or another already.

However, you can take steps to avoid having a bank or other financial institution – including an investment manager – file an SAR on you. If you’re considering doing anything out of the ordinary in your account, talk to an officer at the bank, brokerage, or other financial institution first. For instance, you might want to let someone know before you pay off a loan or make or receive a large transfer.

If you have a reasonable explanation for the transaction, it’s much less likely to set off an alarm. And in a country in which all citizens are considered criminal suspects, that’s definitely something you want to avoid.

Image Credit: Anthony Freda Art

You can read more from Mark Nestmann at Nestmann.com

from:    http://www.activistpost.com/2015/09/spy-on-your-customers-or-else.html

Fear as a Morphogenetic Field

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Collective Trauma: The Morphogenetic Field of Fear

Dieter Duhm

The following is excerpted from the upcoming book Terra Nova: Global Revolution and the Healing of Love.

Behind the crisis of our time hides the core crisis of human relationships. Behind the atrocious massacres, which are currently epitomized in Syria, hides a collective soul pattern, which seems to be consistent on all continents. It is a pattern of fear. In the background of our civilization lies the morphogenetic field of fear. From this field arise horrific forms of cruelty that are actually attempts to kill off one’s own inner fear. If we want to generate lasting peace on Earth we need to transform this pattern of fear into a basic pattern of trust. This is easily said but the fear is deeply anchored within our cells. It has become a firm component of our genetic and physiological makeup; it operates as an unconscious reflex. “Fear has to vanish from the Earth,” Mikhail Gorbachev said. I do not know if he knew the profundity of this statement, however he named the deepest and most comprehensive goal we face today if we want to give a humane direction to evolution. The goal of healing work is to enable a life free from fear. The morphogenetic field of fear needs to be replaced entirely by a morphogenetic field of trust.

Fear is the result of the last millennia. Walter Schubart, in his book Religion und Eros, wrote that there is an original fear at the base of all psychological suffering – the fear of separation. It is the fear of separation that prompts us toward the most insane acts. Separation from our home, family, love partner, group – is there not something that is the same in all these fears, a primal fear of separation? It is difficult to convey the deepest, most primal layers of the soul in words. Time and again, generation after generation, the human being has been separated from that which his original nature most loves, what he loves like a child, simply because he is human, a breathing, sensual, living being. We have fallen away from the oneness and are not finding the way back. We live in “banishment,” as Friedrich Weinreb put it. Healing would thus mean reconnecting humanity with its actual home. This is the entelechial direction of our evolution at present – reintegrating the human world into its original home in life, in love, within the precepts of the Sacred Matrix.

Fear is not a private problem; it is the psychological consequence of a civilization gone awry. It arose in the collective cruelties of humanity. The task of global peace work entails the dissolution of the collective trauma, which accumulated in the collective subconscious of humanity throughout thousands of years of war and expulsion, treachery and betrayal.

Do we know that our entire culture, our states and nations have originated from war? Every one of today’s states exists on conquered land on which there were once indigenous people; there were faithful people, love couples, and playing children. The United States of America needed to eradicate native tribes and enslave millions of Africans to be able to build their nation. Truly these are not good conditions for building a humane civilization. The economy of western countries is fueled by, among other things, the weapon industry and arms trade. This is how normal war has become; how thoughtlessly we have become accustomed to it! War has become a fixture of our society. We live in a “war society” which economically cannot afford peace. If our western societies were to abandon the war economy, millions would lose employment. They could all help to establish a new peace-based economy.

Our civilization is dominated by a profound idiocy, a veritable disease of mind and spirit. It does not fit within life’s plan for people to willfully shoot at each other; this is not coherent with the code of a humane world. War is the result of an inconceivable aberration. When it is claimed that war has “always existed,” we respond that it is time to end this historic insanity. As of now, war must have no place in human culture just as jealousy has no place in love. Have we really needed thousands of years to discover this simple truth? It will be unfathomable to our descendants that people have killed each other out of jealousy. They will understand even less how people could have shot at each other and perpetrated far worse cruelties. It is no use referring to the violence in the animal kingdom or to quote Heraclitus, “War is father of all things.”[i] Such reasoning rests on the assumption that the world should remain as it has “always been.” Those who argue thus fail to see the Creator’s power within humankind and the potential for transfiguration. We are certainly not the product of the past, nor are we determined by natural laws. We are the creators of our lives. We have the freedom and the task to build a better world and it will function if it corresponds to the rules of the Sacred Matrix. Here I want to quote Satprem, a student of the Indian philosopher Sri Aurobindo and the Mother from Auroville. He writes,

After breaking through all those evolutionary layers, you suddenly emerge, in the depths of the body, into something where the old laws of the world no longer have power. And you realize that their power was nothing but a huge collective suggestion – and an old habit. But just a habit! There are no “laws”; there are only fossilized habits. And the whole process is to break through those habits. (…) But that state has to come to a point when it’s experienced spontaneously and naturally by the body, which means freeing it of all its conditioning. Then you emerge into something fantastic. But really fantastic! Although I suppose that the first gliding of a bird in the air also was fantastic. Yet there was a moment when an old reptile took off and became a bird.[ii]

There are no ready-made laws and no ultimate physical laws pertaining to our bodies. There are only entrenched behavioral habits and there is a freedom within ourselves that enables us to rise to a higher form of life.

When we shed light on the vileness encapsulated within the word “war,” we see the pictures of horror stored in the inherited memory of humankind, pictures of mass murder, mutilation, fleeing, and hunger. These experiences have repeated generation after generation, over hundreds and thousands of years. They have been deeply carved into humanity’s genetic memory. Our collective human soul is burdened with this nightmare.

There is buried within us all a traumatic shell; it can explode at any time. “Everyone has their Vietnam,” said Claude AnShin Thomas, a war veteran and Buddhist monk, who has wandered the world working for peace.[iii] What is currently happening in the outbursts of violence – in gang fights and youth prisons, in schools, neighborhoods, football stadiums, and torture chambers – is the consequence of a global trauma that will continually repeat until the root causes are eradicated once and for all.

Originating from a long history of war, these horrific images form the traumatic core of humanity. This traumatic core exercises a subconscious tyranny over the basements of the soul, fires images of fear into our organism, betrays love, ridicules faith, produces patterns of negative interpretation of all events, and fights people who think differently. It produces erroneous notions of disease and healing; it steers our psychosomatic processes, our perceptions, and reflexes, our hormones, our nerve function, and muscle contractions. We are subconsciously attuned to the informational matrix of the trauma. We live in the subconscious scenario of omnipresent danger against which we need to defend ourselves. The world appears to be an anonymous jury before which we need to protect and justify ourselves. There is a collective feeling of being judged. Behind all psychological malformation, all forms of neurosis and psychopathy, hides the big collective trauma, a disease affecting the entire human race.

I want to quote Eckhart Tolle. He refers to the collective trauma as the “pain- body.” He writes,

This energy field of old but still very much alive emotion that lives in almost every human being is the pain-body. The pain-body, however, is not just individual in nature. It also partakes of the pain suffered by countless humans throughout the history of humanity, which is a history of continuous tribal warfare, of enslavement, pillage, rape, torture, and other forms of violence. This pain still lives in the collective psyche of humanity and is being added to on a daily basis, as you can verify when you watch the news tonight or look at the drama in people’s relationships.[iv]

We have grown accustomed to horrific news; it has enveloped us in fog. In the moment of awakening, a strange thought hits us: Can it all be true? Have we really participated in it? And, how do we get out? It is barely possible to see through the mechanisms inherent within the existing society and still continue walking the old path. Do we have to step out? If so, how? Where to? In order to be able to step out, we need an alternative to step into. It does not yet exist in its finished form, but arises through the creation of centers for cultural transformation, birthplaces of a new Earth. The collaboration of hundreds, thousands, millions is now needed for building the new structures, new working places, and new professions required for creating Terra Nova. All those who still have a meaningful function in the existing society may use it for setting the course toward Terra Nova. The revolution needs not only radical activists but also mediators between the old and new world.

In the wake of the great trauma, disturbances emerge in interpersonal communication. In almost all cases, they run according to a similar pattern of subconscious belief sentences that constantly perpetuate the latent subliminal war among people.

I want to name three examples:

  1. Many people live in the subconsciously imagined situation of not being accepted by others. Consequently, they interpret the reactions of those they speak with from this vantage point. A compliment can thus be heard as ironic, a pensive gaze as judgment, a question as aggression, a good suggestion as criticism, and so on. This is how severe interference emerges beneath the surface of our contacts; this is seldom understood and can lead us all the way to hatred. In many political discussion groups one witnesses conversations that become increasingly long and meaningless, for they are steered by the distress of subconscious beliefs that have absolutely nothing to do with the objective issue at hand. Such neurotic interpretation patterns become especially dire in love relationships. Once two lovers have worked themselves into the noose of such misunderstandings there is rarely a way out because any rational possibility for correction is shut down. How many relationships fail due to the injuries partners inflict upon each other from within the interpretation pattern of non-acceptance? And once they are really at odds with each other the assumption of non-acceptance finds obvious confirmation. This is a stark example of a self-fulfilling prophecy. The neurotic then has every reason to see his delusion as reality. He defends himself against everything that could heal him. In fact this is a fundamental problem of our society – a deep psychologically anchored defense against anything that could heal.
  2. A second example, closely related to the first, is the fear of separation in love. As a result of the great trauma many people live with the conviction of not being loved. When they have found a love partner they still tacitly do not believe in his or her love and therefore live in latent mistrust and latent fear of loss. They therefore do everything to prevent separation, which is exactly how they invoke actual danger of separation. For the strategies one enacts within the fear of separation – such as clinging, whining, complaining, blackmailing, etcetera – are not conducive to love. As a therapist, I have witnessed this pernicious pattern of self-fulfilling prophecy to be present in almost all love relationships. It is not easy to believe in love within a society whose sexual laws force most people to lie to their partner. The therapeutic response ultimately consists of building a community where no one has to lie anymore.
  3. An astonishing example of the impact of subconscious paradigms is provided in the history of the First World War. All nations that started the war – Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia, and France – lived under the expectation of immanent attack by one of the others – a typical relict of the great historic trauma. Historians agree that there was no rational reason for war. It was a psychological theater beyond compare. One could have performed it on stage with humor, had not approximately fifteen million people died. This is a classic example of the psychopathological background to global politics so long as it is directed by people that have not resolved their subconscious trauma.

I am trained as a psychoanalyst and have actually never left this profession, but I have continued, deepened, and refined it over almost forty years of group work. In order to understand what happens among human beings, I needed to get to know many layers of the soul: the conscious and unconscious, open and suppressed, biographic and karmic layers. I have gotten to know more than a hundred groups and projects and have seen how the same basic patterns of neurosis recur everywhere in similar form. I myself have been my best research object; bit-by-bit the psychological processes, the habitual reactions and disguises, the suppressed images and impulses, which comprise the totality of the subliminal war of our times, revealed themselves. The war was also latently in me. However, there was an inner point from which I could recognize and correct my neuroses. We call it the “God Point” in the human being. It is the inner point of reflection from which we receive direct feedback that enables us to remain on the entelechial track. I assume that it exists in all people. It is implicit then that everyone would be able to recognize their mental incapacity and live a responsible life.

A very important condition for successful global healing work is the dissolution of the traumatic core. With this realization we stand outside of all historic revolutionary concepts. We need ways of living that enable us to overcome our horrible heritage. Generating such ways of living is the crucial topic of our time. One immediately understands that a phenomenon is addressed here that can neither be solved by political revolution nor by individual therapy. We need collective solutions, a healing of the psychological foundations.

From our many years of healing work, we know how difficult it is to dissolve the psychological consequences of this trauma. The groups currently standing on the political and human frontlines need an extensive knowledge of life and its healing powers if they are to withstand the conflict. We can activate the powers of healing with every action. The work in the new centers is largely and fundamentally consciousness work. It requires collective training to continuously choose the positive side. The old field of anger and fear has to be transformed, through an historic effort, to a field of trust and love. We have to do this with all our strength, in collaboration with all peace groups and projects worldwide, until the information of peace has become firmly absorbed into the genetic system of Homo sapiens.

from:    http://realitysandwich.com/318607/collective-trauma-the-morphogenetic-field-of-fear/

Connecting with Animals

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How to Connect Telepathically with Animals: A Practical Guide

Linda Bender DVM

Join Dr. Linda Bender for the Evolver Learning Lab course, “Connecting with Animal Wisdom: Awaken Your Heart and Intuition,” to deepen your relationship with animals and learn how animals can connect you more profoundly to all of life, and expand your consciousness. This live, 5-part interactive video course starts on September 23. For this series, Linda has gathered five leading animal experts, advocates, and healers: Andrew Harvey, Ellie Laks, Sandra Da Feo, Rick Kaplan, and Michael J. Tamura. To find out more, click here.

This article is taken from Animal Wisdom: Learning from the Spiritual Lives of Animals, recently published by North Atlantic Books. It presents the first seven of 18 practices. 

When we love and spend a lot of time with any being—whether an animal or another person—we usually have a pretty good idea of what that person is feeling, and why. I do not believe that people who call themselves “animal communicators” are significantly more gifted in this regard than regular people. I personally do not like the term animal communicator, because it infers that someone who is labeled “animal communicator” has a special talent or gift that you do not have. We all come into this world wired to connect with all life.

When I need to know what ’s going on with an animal who seems troubled, I first rely on my veterinary training, what the animal’s human guardian reports, and what my physical senses tell me, as well as my “sixth sense” that all living beings are born with. An intuitive ex- change with an animal starts like any other—with physical cues—body language and gestures. From there we reach out from the silent language of our hearts; love creates alignment with human and nonhuman beings.

All life responds to offerings of respect, gentleness, admiration, and reverence. To do psychic or telepathic readings of individual animals is not my intention here and is something I’ve never seen as necessary or desirable. It is not what I will be teaching you to do in this chapter.

Whereas a psychic reading is an attempt to discover otherwise undisclosed information about its subject, my intuitive exchanges with animals are exchanges between equals, companions, about matters of mutual spiritual concern. Say, for example, I have an inner encounter with a dog in a rescue shelter. I probably won’t find out how the dog came to be a stray or who his previous people were. Instead I may learn the sort of thing a human survivor of a traumatic experience would share during a deep and searching conversation about the meaning of adversity. Or say that I myself am going through a difficult time. The spirit of an animal may come to comfort me and offer me some wisdom. The inner encounters I have with animals—and will be teaching you to have—are exchanges of meaning.

I’ve been able to connect with animals in this way ever since I was a small child. Nobody taught me how, and there was no particular technique to it. I was just doing what came naturally to me, exercising what I believe to be an ability all of us are born with. Because the ability is seldom recognized or affirmed in our society, most children lose touch with it at a very young age, and forget that they ever possessed it. So why didn’t that happen to me? As I mentioned earlier in the book, I felt somehow imprinted in my early years by the animals. My experiences with them in nature are deeply embedded in my core. Animals offered me the validation and interpretive help that children more usually receive from human adults. When they noticed I was open to connect with them, they taught me how to connect more. Also mentioned earlier in the book, scientific research shows that emotional need acts like a magnet in the intuitive process. Emotional needs are expressions of the heart.

Even if you can’t remember any instances of it in your own child- hood, I encourage you to think of intuitive, telepathic communication with animals as a natural ability that you once had and have temporarily misplaced, rather than as a supernatural power that you are trying to acquire. There is nothing supernatural or paranormal about it. An animal communicator does not possess a gift that you lack.

Now that I am trying to help others to reawaken this capacity, I’ve had to reflect more about how it works. So let me begin with my thoughts about that. It seems to me that the way in to the mind of any other being is through the mind of the Source. We all exist in the one mind of the Source.  Everything in the created world carries a spark of the Source, divine consciousness. It is what all creatures have in common. Though I appear drastically different from an elephant in out- ward form, insofar as we are both manifestations of the divine mind, we are made of exactly the same stuff. What makes an elephant alive is the very same thing that makes me alive. So when I want to experience a spiritual connection with an elephant, I start by connecting to the Source within me. It is the voice of the heart that takes over. As I said earlier, love creates alignment with all creation. Once I connect with that, the corresponding part of another being lies open to me. I don’t have to go looking for it. I simply recognize it, as one recognizes that which is perfectly self-evident. To be truly recognized is what the Source in every living creature most longs for. Every living creature just eats that up. When you are able to recognize the divine nature of other beings, you become transcendentally charming. Many beings are eager to confide in you.

So the first step in learning to connect with the spirits of animals is to connect to the divine within yourself. To do so, you need to quiet the mundane chatter of your mind and bring your attention into the present moment. I’m going to offer you a variety of practices that might help you to achieve that. You might already do some meditation or other practice that reliably gets you to an inwardly quiet and receptive place. If so, feel free to substitute that for my suggestions.

Practice #1: The Wildlife Photographer

Imagine that you are a wildlife photographer in quest of a close-up. You need to be very quiet and still so as not to frighten away the creature you wish to photograph. At the same time, you need to remain alert so that you will be ready to act as soon as that creature comes near. In a quiet place where you will be protected from interruption, settle yourself in a position that feels both relaxed and alert. Imagine that your thoughts are audible. The more long-winded and complicated a thought, the louder it is. If you become totally carried away with your thoughts, you will scare away the animals for sure. At the same time, imagine that when you exhale, you are creating a blanket of silence. Whenever you notice that your thoughts are becoming noisy, bring your attention to your out-breath to cancel the sound of them. The object here is to quiet the mind rather than to empty it entirely. Thoughts will continue to arise, but you can reduce the noise level by letting go of each thought and bringing your attention back to the out-breath.

Variation: Try this practice in an outdoor setting: your backyard, a park, or a nature preserve. See if you can become so inwardly quiet and outwardly still that the creatures around you are undisturbed by your presence and emboldened to come closer to you than they normally would come to a human being.

Practice #2: Bringing Your Attention into the Present

A quality all animals have in common is that their attention is completely focused on whatever they are doing in the present. Animals don’t multitask. They don’t make plans for the future or dwell on what happened in the past. In order to connect with an animal mind, your mind needs to be focused on the present moment as well. Here are some simple exercises for focusing your attention:

  1. Eat a meal the way an animal does, concentrating on the act of eating without doing anything else. Don’t read, watch TV, listen to music, or converse. Experience the meal with all of your senses. Whenever you notice your mind starting to wander, gently bring it back to your food and to the activity of eating.
  2. Often when we are driving, we experience the roads as an entirely manmade environment, constructed for our own convenience. But even in big cities, our roads cut through the habitats of other creatures—often to their peril. (Over a million squirrels are killed each year by vehicles.) Try driving as slowly as the law allows, remaining conscious that there are other creatures all around you, whether you are able to see them or not, and that you are passing through their territories. Be alert to the possibility that an animal may suddenly dart across the road, unaware of the potential danger because animals don’t interpret the road the way you do. Considering the road from an animal standpoint will make you a safer driver.
  3. Animals experience the world directly through their physical senses, and many of them are gifted with senses that are more acute than ours. Choose one of your physical senses and spend five minutes experiencing your environment with that sense alone. For example, if you choose the sense of smell, focus entirely on the odors and scents around you, noticing those that seldom come to your full awareness. Next time you do the exercise, choose a different sense. Try this practice both indoors and outdoors.
  4. If you have a dog, go for a walk together, letting the dog set the pace and choose the direction. Focus your attention entirely on whatever interests your dog from moment to moment. Try to keep the leash loose, so that neither you nor your dog experience any tugging or jerking. In order to do this, you will need to fall into a rapport, anticipating each other’s movements. Think of the leash as a symbol of your connection with your dog rather than as the physical means of staying connected. This is a terrific way of learning to concentrate your attention, and of discovering what the world is like from your dog’s point of view.

Practice #3: A Day of Silence

Silence is often practiced in the context of a spiritual retreat, but I find the practice even more powerful when it is incorporated into my ordinary life at home. What keeping silent means is to refrain entirely from the use of words—neither speaking, hearing, reading, nor writing them. (By this definition, animals live their whole lives in silence, even though they make sounds.) As you settle into silence, you will probably find that your attention gradually shifts away from verbal thoughts and toward sense impressions, emotions, and mental images. In this way, your consciousness becomes more like that of an animal. This is a wonderful practice to share with an animal companion, if you have one. If you normally use words to communicate with your animal, refrain from doing so on this day.

Opening the Heart

Once your mind is quiet and attentive, the next step in connecting to the divine within you is to open your heart. We are most likely to feel that our hearts are open when we feel warm, expansive, and loving. But if you are not already in that place, trying to get there on purpose doesn’t always work, and your effort can backfire into a sense of personal inadequacy. So when you work with the heart-opening practices, start from the premise that your heart can do no wrong. Whatever it is feeling—or not feeling—is true, sincere, and of value. Let your heart decide which of the practices it feels like doing at any given moment, and let it decide when to quit. Don’t try to force a result, and don’t evaluate. Whatever happens (or doesn’t happen) is fine.

Practice #4: The Keepsake Box

Picture a beautiful box in which you store mementos of love, compassion, and kindness that you have received over the years. Search your memory for items to place in this box. For example, recall a time when:

  • someone made you feel completely understood  and accepted
  • someone really knocked him- or herself out to help you
  • you received a gift that was far more generous than you expected, and exactly what you had been wanting
  • you did something hurtful and the other person fully forgave you
  • you were feeling worthless  and received a sincere and glowing compliment
  • you couldn’t meet some obligation and another person let you off easy

As each memory comes to mind, picture holding it at heart level and notice what happens. If you feel a stirring of warmth or joy or genuine gratitude, place the memory reverently in your imaginary keepsake box. If you’re not feeling it, set that memory aside. (Don’t tell yourself that you should be feeling something that you don’t truly feel.) Each time you return to this practice, begin by taking out and appreciating the items that you have previously placed in the box. Then add any new mementos that might come to mind.

We are most easily moved to gratitude when we have received a gift or a favor that we have done nothing to earn or deserve. Having awakened gratitude by recalling specific incidents like those listed above, see if you can extend the feeling to the blessings all of us receive every day—blessings that no one has to earn or deserve. We are blessed by the sun and the rain, the moon and the stars, the trees, and the flowers. We are blessed by the firm earth under our feet, the air we breathe, the water we drink and bathe in, and the warmth of our own blood. Even when nothing in your life is going the way you want it to go, you wake up every day to find yourself in this miraculously beautiful and supportive environment, and you get to live in it for free! Bring all of this to mind, and bask in the awareness of your good fortune.

Practice #5: Receiving an Animal’s Appreciation

If you have a companion animal, do something that makes that animal demonstrably happy. Get your cat to purr or your dog to jump up and down with joy. Bring the whole of your attention to the gratitude your animal is expressing. Think: “This is the God within me being praised.” Learning to fully take in the appreciation your animal bestows is particularly helpful if you’re the sort of person who has trouble accepting compliments or thanks that come from other people.

Practice #6: The Noah’s Ark of Emotions

Animals have a unique ability to touch the human heart. In fact, sometimes animals move us when nothing else will.

Imagine you have built an ark and need to populate it with all the different ways of feeling moved by an animal. Think of a story, a picture, a film clip, or a memory of an animal that moves you in a particular way: an animal who makes you laugh; one for whom you feel compassion;  one who inspires awe and admiration;  one who makes you go all mushy with affection. For the purpose of this practice you might want to create a physical collection: a file of pictures, anecdotes, and/or video clips. Return to your ark periodically, either singling out a particular item that evokes an emotion you want to feel at that moment, or just browsing to reexperience the various feelings you’ve had in the past. This practice can be especially helpful at times when you’re caught up in thoughts and out of touch with your heart.

Practice #7: The Heart on a Bad-Hair Day

Mystics and seers who are able to connect with spiritual beings usually advise detaching somewhat from the physical senses and the emotions. Since the spiritual beings don’t have bodies and aren’t very emotional, putting oneself in a neutral and somewhat disembodied state helps one to establish a rapport with them. Some people find that they can’t do this at all, and a great many people find that they are unable to do it at the very times when hearing from them, or perhaps a guide or an angel (or from God), would be most welcome. When we ’re sick or exhausted or in the grip of some powerful and painful emotion, input from above might really help, yet we feel we are in no fit state to present ourselves at the gates of heaven.

This is what ’s so great about animals as spiritual helpers. They’re incarnate just like us. They know what it ’s like to feel needy or threatened or sad. When you’re having a bad-hair day, spiritually speaking, you don’t need to tidy yourself up to connect with an animal. On the contrary, the strong emotion that makes it impossible for you to quiet your mind or fill your heart with love and light can become the very means of connection.

The next time you are in the grip of some strong emotion that makes it impossible for you to do any of the previous exercises, don’t fight it. Instead, bring the whole of your attention to what you are feeling. What you want to experience is the texture and sensation of the emotion itself, as opposed to the many thoughts you are probably having about the emotion. You want to experience the emotion through the body more than the head. For example, if you are anxious, your mind is probably full of worries and problem-solving schemes. If you are angry, your mind is probably busy replaying the incident that set you off or engaged in self- righteous diatribes. Instead, you want to focus on what anger or anxiety feels like on a physical level. Notice what part of your body feels it the most, and what the sensation is like. Instead of trying to get rid of that sensation, say “hello” to it and keep it company for a few minutes. Whenever your mind starts to veer off into anxious or angry thoughts, gently bring it back to what is happening in your body.

As you are simply sitting with the difficult feeling, invite an image of an animal to come. This may or may not happen. Don’t try to force it. Simply invite it and see what happens. Should an animal image appear, recognize the emotion you are feeling as your connection to it. This animal knows how you feel, and you know how she feels, because all living creatures experience emotion. You are not isolated in your distress. On the contrary: it connects you to something universal. All feelings are an expression of our aliveness, and a manifestation of the God within.

from:    http://realitysandwich.com/318695/how-to-connect-telepathically-with-animals-a-practical-guide/

Geo-Engineering Whistleblowers

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Geoengineering Whistleblowers: USDA Official, Forest Service Scientist and Military Veterans Speak Out

US Forest Service Scientist, Defense Industry Technician and Military Veterans Speak Out About Geoengineering 4

17th September 2015

By Dane Wigington

Guest Writer for Wake Up World

Exposing the Climate Modification Assault Against Humanity

On August 14th, 2015, there was a major event in Northern California that was organized for the purpose of exposing and halting global climate engineering programs that are decimating our planet and the entire web of life. Numerous experts spoke out at this event including attorneys, former government scientists, a former defense industry technician, former military personnel, a prominent Northern California neurologist, and a CEO for one of the largest environmental and engineering consulting firms in the world. Approximately 1000 people attended this event.

This article features videos of 3 key speeches from this groundbreaking event, plus presentations from U.S. Air Force Bio-Environmental Engineer turned geoengineering whistleblower, Kristen Meghan.

Former U.S. Department of Agriculture Official, Rosalind Peterson

Rosalind Peterson is a former U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) farm service agency agricultural crop loss adjustor and co-founder of the Agriculture Defense Coalition (ADC). Rosalind has spoken on the floor of the United Nations about the climate engineering issue (at the 60th Annual Conference on Climate Change) and has fought long and hard to expose the the truth about many dire issues. Her statement of urgency is contained in the video below.

Former US Forest Service biologist, Francis Mangels

Former US Forest Service biologist, Francis Mangels, has shown tremendous courage by consistently speaking out about the extremely dire heavy metal contamination we are all being exposed to from the ongoing climate engineering fallout. Because Francis is a former government scientist, his ongoing lab testing has been extremely helpful in the battle to expose climate engineering. A short statement of urgency from Francis is featured in the attached video below.

US Military Veteran, Mario Ramirez

Mario Ramirez is a US Navy veteran who has shown tremendous courage by speaking publicly about the tyranny that is rampant within the ranks of our own government and military. I have great respect for Mario, he is setting an example of honesty that will help to compel other honorable armed services personnel to step forward and tell their story.

Former defense industry technician, Mark McCandlish

Former defense industry technician Mark McCandlish has been a very outspoken voice in the ongoing fight to expose the global climate engineering insanity. Mark has a long resume which includes employment by Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, McDonnell-Douglas, Northrop Grumman, the US military, and others. In the video below Mark shares his perspectives on the dire threat we face from ongoing aerosol spraying of our skies.

My deepest appreciation to emcee John B. Wells (radio host for the acclaimed “Caravan to Midnight” show), to all the speakers who participated in this event and shared their knowledge, to each and every activist that contributed countless hours, and of course our gratitude to all those that attended the event.

Ex-Military Specialist, Kristen Meghan

The following 2 videos are introduced by Andy Whiteley, Co-Founder of Wake Up World.

Kristen Meghan spent nine years in active duty in the U.S. Air Force, as a Bio-Environmental Engineer (Air Force Specialty Code 4BOX1). Meghan audited chemicals as part of her USAF duties, and when she heard about the “chemtrails conspiracy”, she wanted to prove it wrong — but the opposite happened.

“In an attempt to debunk it, it changed my life,” Meghan says.

In the following presentation filmed in Hauppauge, NY, 2014, Kristen Meghan gives an informative presentation of what she had discovered about Geoengineering while serving her country, and exposes websites “Metabunk” and “Contrail Science” as government sponsored disinformation sites.

In this second presentation, filmed at the 2013 Atlanta Music Liberty Festival, Kristen Meghan explains how she discovered evidence of Geoengineering programs, and reveals why she left the military — after an attempt to silence her from speaking out on employee exposures from industrial sanding operations.

California Jam 2015, featuring Dane Wigington

On March 27th and 28th of 2015, a major global awareness event was held in Southern California called “Cal Jam”. This gathering brought together several thousand concerned citizens from all arenas of the global community. Many that attended were from the medical and chiropractic professions, and a number of speakers presented information on critical issues that we face.

One of the primary subjects addressed was the issue of geoengineering. The 25 minute presentation below is an outline of the threat posed by global climate engineering. It is also an appeal for all of us to pull together in the critical effort to expose and halt the spraying of our skies with highly toxic aerosols which is contaminating every breath we take.

My deepest and most sincere gratitude to event organizers, Dr. Billy DeMoss, D.C. and Mary Jane Mirasol, for their tireless efforts toward the common good and for producing this video. I also wish to thank all the other speakers at the Cal Jam event as well as all those who attended. Cal Jam was truly a gathering of people who are committed to making the world a better place.

Learn how you can help and join us in this all important fight for the future of our planet.

from:    http://wakeup-world.com/2015/09/17/geoengineering-whistleblowers-usda-official-forest-service-scientist-and-military-veterans-speak-out/

Holistic Practitioners Unexplained Deaths

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Unexplained Deaths Continue to Rock the Health World… So Why Aren’t Officials Connecting the Dots?

Unexplained-Natural-Health-Deaths-Continue...-So-Why-Arent-Officials-Connecting-the-Dots

14th September 2015

By Andy Whiteley

Co-Founder of Wake Up World

Over the past several months, there has been a series of at least 11 unexplained deaths and disappearances of holistic physicians and health practitioners in the United States. These deaths include Dr. Nicholas Gonzalez, a renowned holistic medical doctor who specialized in holistic cancer treatment, Dr. Jeff Bradstreet, a leading autism researcher and physician, and Teresa Sievers MD, an Integrative Medicine practitioner who operated Florida’s Restorative Health and Healing Center.

Last week, further news surfaced of the poisoning of 29 holistic doctors and homeopathic practitioners with a controlled substance, 2C-E, during a professional conference near Hamburg, Germany. (Despite Snopes.com‘s claims of “debunking” this story, German news networks Der Spiegel and Northern German Broadcasting (NDR) have confirmed these facts.)

And now, this disturbing trend continues with the shooting death of Brian Short, the founder of popular health website AllNurses.com, and his entire family at their home in Greenwood, Minnesota.

Although officials are treating each instance of murder or disappearance separately, this series of “co-incidental” deaths among health practitioners and holistic physicians has raised many concerns among the alternative news community.

The Death of Brian Short

Reports Yahoo.com: “The founder of a social networking service for nurses used a shotgun to kill his wife and three children before turning the gun on himself, police said Saturday after the release of autopsy reports… Investigators believe Brian Short killed his wife, Karen, and their three teenage children in their Greenwood home late Monday or early Tuesday, Mike Siitari, the interim chief of the South Lake Minnetonka’s police department, told The Associated Press.”

While the Short family deaths are being treated by mainstream media as a closed murder suicide case, the South Lake Minnetonka Police Department, however, has not concluded its investigations.

According to a report from the Star Tribune: “Investigators estimated that the deaths occurred late Monday night or early Tuesday morning and said they had not determined a motive in the killings.”

Says interim police chief Mike Siitari: “There are many moving parts in an investigation of this magnitude. I once again ask for the media’s and public’s patience while we work through all of the evidence and facts.”

Siitari confirmed at a news conference that Brian Short’s body was found in the garage, and also confirmed that a shotgun was found in the house, though strangely, he would not say where the shotgun was found.

Are the “moving parts” more complex than officials care to admit?

Considering the apparent coincidence of these many unexplained deaths and disappearances, detailed below, many in the health and holistic care communities are asking the question: Are health practitioners under attack? However it seems officials are taking the more reductionist view, choosing instead to view each instance as entirely unrelated. This of course raises the further question: Why are officials so unwilling to acknowledge the obvious?

This spate of deaths, largely within the holistic health arena, undeniably demands far more consideration, as indeed does the death of Mr. Short, who provided a popular networking platform for nurses working within the ailing healthcare system.

As noted by Heavy.com, there were no obvious signs the trouble at the Short home.

“Nothing in Brian Short’s Facebook page hinted that there were any problems. In fact, friends, neighbors, and family members thought the family was happy. Brian and Karen seemed like a happy couple who were always together, [as] People Magazine reported. They hosted parties at their home, but seemed unpretentious, according to friends. Brian seemed to be happy and smiling all the time. Some people question the entire murder-suicide story and wonder if there’s more to the case than the police have stated.”

According to the Star Tribune:

“They seemed like a great family… Everything was perfect.”

Sold in September 2011 for $2 million to the Shorts… the family moved to the 5,600-square-foot mansion, with an eight-car garage and a panoramic view of St. Albans Bay, from a 4,200-square-foot house in Lakeville.

Public records show no bankruptcies or state tax liens against Brian Short or his company… 

He was facing a federal lawsuit from a New Jersey-based company… [after] AllNurses.com failed to delete anonymous defamatory comments from its website… although it is unclear whether it posed much of a legal or financial threat to his business… 

There is some speculation within mainstream media that the potential financial implication of a lawsuit against AllNurses.com must have driven Short to commit murder/suicide, and this is really the only potential motive being seriously considered by investigators. However, as the founder of a website that receives over 4 million unique visitors per month, Short had received offers from numerous companies to buy AllNurses.com over the years, as he detailed in a 2014 interview with the Star Tribune:

I’ve been offered 50 buyouts in the last 10 years. I’ve turned them all down. I have so many ideas that I want to enable. At some point maybe I’ll sell — I have no interest in that now. I get a lot of satisfaction knowing that I’ve had an impact on nursing. It’s a very fulfilling career.

With lucrative buyout opportunities available, a reasonable person must wonder: If Short was facing financial troubles so dire as to drive him to murder suicide, why would he not have just sold the business? Or his $2 million mansion?

Furthermore, Yahoo News also reported that “all evidence indicates Brian Short killed his family members in their bedrooms before turning the gun on himself”. However as Short is alleged to have killed 4 family members, such a scenario would therefore require each of them to have remained stationary in their individual bedrooms, paying no attention to the sound of a shotgun going off multiple times in their home. It also requires Mr. Short to have turned a shotgun — a long weapon that fires from the shoulder — on himself.

image

Clearly, something doesn’t add up here.

With no clear motives or background that might explain this, or indeed any of these mysterious deaths and disappearances, why are officials so intent on ignoring the broader context of these killings? In the course of several months, no less than 11 prominent names in the health community have been killed or disappeared, many of them controversial to the mainstream health establishment, and many under highly suspicious circumstances. For example:

  • Dr. Jeff Bradstreet, a “no-vax” doctor, was a leading autism researcher and physician who had helped over 4,000 children recover naturally from autism and other correlated conditions. Notably, Bradstreet’s death occurred shortly after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Georgia Drugs and Narcotics Agency raided his clinic.
  • Dr. Nicholas Gonzales went public with evidence of the cancer industry’s suppression of available, low-cost cancer treatments in his 2012 book What Went Wrong: The Truth Behind the Clinical Trial of the Enzyme Treatment of Cancer. A recent release from Dr. Nick Gonzalez’s official website states that Dr. Gonzales “had been in excellent health. Preliminary autopsy results have been inconclusive, but do not support the initial belief that he might have suffered a heart attack. Further tests are underway to determine the cause of death.”

Such a series of events within any specific industry would ordinarily be treated as highly suspicious by officials, or even investigated as potential serial killing. However it is only the ‘alternative’ (I hate that word) media that is even acknowledging these coincidences, much less taking this context into serious consideration.

It’s time we know why.

It’s no secret that big pharma operates no differently to organized crime. Says former Vice-President of Pfizer pharmaceuticals:

“It is scary how many similarities there are between this [pharmaceutical] industry and the mob. The mob makes obscene amounts of money, as does this industry. The side effects of organized crime are killings and deaths, and the side effects are the same in this industry. The mob bribes politicians and others, and so does the drug industry …”

Further demonstrating the culture of criminality among the pharmaceutical health industry, testimony in an Australian class-action case revealed emails between Merck employees seeking to “neutralize” and “discredit” doctors who criticized the highly profitable drug Vioxx (which was withdrawn from the market after it was proven to cause heart attacks, strokes and death.) One email between Merck employees said:

“We may need to seek them out and destroy them where they live …”

The court was told James Fries, professor of Medicine at Stanford University, wrote to the head of Merck in October 2000 complaining about the harassment members of his team who had criticized the drug received from Merck agents.

When this culture is viewed in context, even the least conspiracy-minded among us must soon begin to wonder: Are these recent deaths the acts of crony corporatists trying to silence the prominent voices of natural and progressive health solutions? Or voices of dissent among their ranks?

At the time of writing, investigators into the death of the Short family are unavailable to comment.

If there is foul-play behind these apparent coincidences, you can bet officials are never going to solve these crimes, and it is only through public awareness and diligence that the dots will ever be connected.

Please inform yourself of the history of recent deaths (listed below) and share this article with as many people as you can. We will continue to make public any details that come to hand.

My deepest condolences to the families who lost their loved ones. And to our friends and colleagues in the natural health arena, please take care of yourselves. We need you now more than ever.

To your health,
Andy

Unexplained-Natural-Health-Deaths-Continue...-So-Why-Arent-Officials-Connecting-the-Dots-insert

A summary of recent deaths, disappearances and poisonings of health practitioners and holistic physicians.

  • Dr. Jeff Bradstreet, a leading autism researcher and physician, was found dead from a gun shot wound to the chest in late June. Dubbed a “no-vax” doctor, Dr. Bradstreet’s death occurred shortly after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Georgia Drugs and Narcotics Agency raided his clinic.
  • Two chiropractors, Dr. Baron Holt and Dr. Bruce Hedendal, died a few days later from “unknown causes.” Dr. Holt, 33 and Dr. Hedendal, 67, were both were reportedly healthy, and both were described by their families as very fit. Both men were chiropractors and fathers, and both were found dead on the East Coast of Florida, both on Father’s Day.
  • The following week, on June 29th, Integrative Medicine practitioner Teresa Sievers MD was murdered in her home. Says Sheriff Mike Scott who is leading the investigation into her homocide, “Based on the evidence we have to this point… [Sievers’ murder] is not a random, arbitrary situation.”
  • The same day, Jeffrey Whiteside MD vanished without a trace. Dr. Whiteside was a pulmonologist known for his successful treatment of lung cancer, who reportedly vanishing while vacationing with family in Wisconsin. On July 23rd, authorities found the body of Dr. Jeffrey Whiteside, who at that stage had been missing for over three weeks. The sheriff’s department said that a .22-caliber handgun was found at the scene, however authorities did not release the cause of death following the autopsy.
  • Four days later, Patrick Fitzpatrick MD also disappeared while travelling from North Dakota to neighboring Montana. His truck and trailer were found on the roadside, however authorities have found no trace of Dr. Fitzpatrick.
  • One week later, Dr. Lisa Riley, a doctor of osteopathic medicine, was found in her home with a gunshot to the head. Authorities have charged Dr. Riley’s husband Yathomas Riley, who reported her death to police, with her murder.
  • Dr. Ron Schwartz, an MD and gynecologist who practiced in Jupiter, Florida, was murdered on July 19th. Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Teri Barbera said Schwartz’s death is considered a homicide, and added that the rumor that Schwartz had millions of dollars in his home is not true. Authorities have no firm leads.
  • Two days afterwards, Dr. Nicholas Gonzalez, a renowned holistic medical doctor who specialized in holistic cancer treatment, died suddenly — even though he was in excellent health. Dr. Gonzalez was the author of What Went Wrong: The Truth Behind the Clinical Trial of the Enzyme Treatment of Cancer, in which he described a concerted effort by the cancer industry to suppress evidence of available, low-cost cancer treatments.
  • In late July, holistic dentist Dr. Hakeem Abdul-Karim died in North Carolina — where our first Doctor Bradstreet was also found dead on June 19th, just over one month earlier. Although he was in top physical shape, Dr. Abdul-Karim reportedly died suddenly at 41 while training for a half marathon before a passerby found him dead on the side of the road. With extensive training in dental surgery and a focus on “preventative dentistry”, Dr. Abdul-Karim founded a non-profit foundation 2 years ago to treat severely disadvantaged children and mentally ill patients.
  • On August 3rd, the “sudden, non-medical death” of Jef Harvey was announced by his colleagues. Harvey was a technologist and healing arts practitioner, homeopathy practitioner and Board Certified in Quorom Nutrition, who until his death was working to deploy emerging technologies in autoimmune disease reversal and accelerated deep tissue wound healing. A 6 year veteran in Naval Intelligence (Electronics Unit), Harvey’s background included advanced software systems as well as military training in remote viewing and neurolinguistic programmming (NLP). He was a vocal advocate for transparency and disclosure on every level, including disclosure of the military-industrial–intelligence complex, ET’s, and the release to the world of the long suppressed technology. (An official cause of Harvey’s death is currently unknown.)
  • Dr. Mary Rene Bovier, an osteopathic physician specializing in behavioral and healthcare counseling, was murdered in her home mid-August. Dr. Bovier, 65, was found stabbed to death in her home in Pennsylvania, in a scene that authorities report to be indicative of homicide.
  • 29 alternative and homeopathic practitioners suffered poisoning from a synthetically-produced drug during a conference near Hamburg, Germany. Members of the group were found in the garden staggering, doubled over in pain. A number were experiencing hallucinations, breathing problems and life-threatening conditions. 160 emergency personnel in 15 ambulances and a helicopter responded to the crisis. Officials are treating this case as a poisoning, however no leads have been uncovered.

Except for the poisoning in Germany, all deaths and disappearances took place in eastern U.S. states, with many in the south.

from:    http://wakeup-world.com/2015/09/14/unexplained-deaths-continue-to-rock-holistic-health-so-why-arent-officials-connecting-the-dots/

SunDiving Comet

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SUNDIVING COMET DESTROYED: The solar system now has one less comet. Earlier today, a sundiving comet discovered on Sept. 15th by Worachate Boonplod, a science writer from Thailand, passed too close to the sun and apparently evaporated. A coronagraph onboard the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) recorded the death plunge:

One comet went in, no comets came out. Fierce heat from the sun likely evaporated the comet’s fragile ices, transforming it into a disintegrated cloud of gas and dust.

Sundiving comets are more common than you might think. SOHO has found more than 3000 of them. Most are members of the Kreutz family. Kreutz sungrazers are fragments from the breakup of a single giant comet many centuries ago. They get their name from 19th century German astronomer Heinrich Kreutz, who studied them in detail. Kreutz fragments pass by the sun and disintegrate almost every day. Most, measuring less than a few meters across, are too small to see, but occasionally a bigger fragment like this one attracts attention.

from:    spaceweather.com

Southern CA Earthquake

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Moderate earthquake – Southern California on September 16, 2015

Last update: September 16, 2015 at 4:56 pm by By

Update 16:24 UTC : Max. light shaking near the epicenter (as expected)

Screen Shot 2015-09-16 at 18.23.47

Update 16:19 UTC :  As the earthquake happened in a rocky area, we do not think that severe damage would be registered. Slight damage is certainly a possibility.

Screen Shot 2015-09-16 at 18.18.15

13km (8mi) SSE of Big Bear Lake, California
14km (9mi) S of Big Bear City, California
20km (12mi) NE of Yucaipa, California
40km (25mi) E of San Bernardino, California
41km (25mi) NE of Moreno Valley, California
46km (29mi) NW of Palm Springs, California
84km (52mi) S of Barstow, California

Most important Earthquake Data:

Magnitude : 4

Local Time (conversion only below land) : 2015-09-16 09:10:47

GMT/UTC Time : 2015-09-16 16:10:47

from:    http://earthquake-report.com/2015/09/16/moderate-earthquake-southern-california-on-september-16-2015/

Faked Scientific Peer Reviews

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Faked peer reviews prompt 64 retractions

The cull follows a similar discovery earlier this year.

A leading scientific publisher has retracted 64 articles in 10 journals, after an internal investigation discovered fabricated peer-review reports linked to the articles’ publication.

Berlin-based Springer announced the retractions in an 18 August statement. In May, Springer merged with parts of Macmillan Science and Education — which publishes Nature — to form the new company Springer Nature.

The cull comes after similar discoveries of ‘fake peer review’ by several other major publishers, including London-based BioMed Central, an arm of Springer, which began retracting 43 articles in March citing “reviews from fabricated reviewers”. The practice can occur when researchers submitting a paper for publication suggest reviewers, but supply contact details for them that actually route requests for review back to the researchers themselves.

The Springer investigation began in November 2014 after a journal editor-in-chief noticed irregularities in contact details for peer reviewers. These included e-mail addresses that the editor they suspected were bogus but were accompanied by the names of real researchers, says William Curtis, executive vice-president for publishing, medicine and biomedicine at Springer. The investigation, which focused on articles for which authors had suggested their own reviewers, detected numerous fabricated peer-review reports. Affected authors and their institutions have been told about the investigation’s findings, says Curtis.

Future vetting

Springer declined to name the articles or journals involved. However, a search of the publisher’s website identified more than 40 retraction notices dated between 17 and 19 August 2015 for articles in 8 Springer journals.

Springer now plans to vet peer-reviewer suggestions more carefully, Curtis says. Its journals may in future request the supply of institutional e-mail addresses or Scopus author IDs for reviewers.

When BioMed Central uncovered its peer-review problem, senior editor for research integrity Elizabeth Moylan noted that some of the issues seemed to involve companies that charge scientists to edit their manuscripts and help them with journal submission. Curtis says that Springer has “limited evidence” to implicate such third parties in some of the cases it uncovered.

Double-checks

Some publishers, such as BioMed Central and San Francisco-based PLoS, have ended the practice of author-suggested reviewers in response to fake peer review. But Elizabeth Wager, a publication consultant and former chair of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), says that “less drastic” measures, such as double-checking non-institutional e-mail addresses given for reviewers, would allow journals to hold on to the expertise that these reviewers often provide.

“The particular problem of fake review comes about when authors are allowed to suggest possible peer reviewers,” says Wager. “The system sounds good. The trouble is when people game the system and use it as a loophole.”

The involvement of third-party companies in bogus peer review is “more worrying”, Wager adds, because it could mean that the practice is more systemic and extends beyond a handful of rogue authors.

Virginia Barbour, the current chair of COPE, says that Springer has informed the committee about the investigation. “It is important publishers take rapid but careful action, as here,” she says.

from:    http://www.nature.com/news/faked-peer-reviews-prompt-64-retractions-1.18202

COMMENT:  If this is happening here, where else is it happening???   Think about it, and do your research.

Ways of Self Protection from Negativity

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9 Ways to Protect Yourself from Negative Energies

Crowd-of-aurasAnna Hunt, Staff Writer
Waking Times

Do you find it exhausting to be around stressed out or negative people? Have you ever left a dramatic situation feeling drained, even if you weren’t personally involved? For most people, the answer is yes. This is because we are constantly absorbing the energies of objects and people around us. Thoughts, emotions and words of other people can have a profound impact on our psyche and physical well-being. Just as spending time in nature or working in a garden can lessen stress and improve our mood, when you’re in a crowded place you will draw in the energies of the people around you, whether you feel it or not.

Here are some tools that to help you clear away negative energy and create a “shield” to maintain your personal energy and keep your psyche clear from the impact of other people and negative situations.

1. Crystals

It is common for people to be skeptical about the healing power of crystals, but one should just turn to science and technology to find proof that crystals are objects of measurable effect. Crystals are used in many objects we use every day including silicon, which is used in all computers and mobile phones and LCD’s, and quartz, a silicate material used in watches and clocks to regulate time. When you consider all of these applications, the effect of crystals on outside energies is undeniable.

Many crystals, especially darker colored ones such as black onyx, obsidian, amethyst, fluorite and tigers eye, repel negative energies and will cleanse your aura. The presence of crystals can also alleviate stress, boost creativity, and contribute to healing and raise levels of consciousness. It is important to remember that working with crystals has much to do with your intentions and your openness to allowing the crystal to work.

2. Smudging Sage

The North American native tradition of smudging by burning white sage bundles has been used for generations to clear out stale and negative energy out of the body and spirit. With the right intent and respect, the smudging process can help you clean your energy field, even if you are unaware of any problems. Smudging may help you clear residual feelings regarding a situation that has past, negative emotions such as anger and fear that linger after an event or interaction, tension and stress felt psychologically or physically, as well as the harmful energies of other people that have latched themselves to your psyche. Smudging is a relaxing way to regain composure and recenter your awareness after experiencing distress.

3. Essential Oils

Using the natural healing properties of essential oils has become more popular as people realize the limitations and detrimental side effects of some modern healing modalities. Essential oils such as sandalwood, niaouli and myrrh all have very power cleansing properties, and smell great. The olfactory sense is more closely linked to our emotional system than any of our other senses, and by using essential oils a link is created between healthy psychic states and the physical presence of the now.

When using essential oils it is important to inhale only the aroma of the oil, either directly or using and oil diffuser (which can be very useful when cleansing and protecting a larger space or several persons). Additionally, you can place a drop of oil in a few specific spots around the head, such as back of the neck, crown of the head and middle of the eyebrows.

4. Incense

Similar to sage smoke and diffused essential oils, incense is known for its purifying and cleansing properties. Incense may not be the best option if you need to ward of psychic attacks when in public, but it is a great tool to use when gathering with others and to cleanse away negative and stale energies around your living spaces. Ensure you use natural essential oil incense, such as Nag Champa and Tibetan Incense Sticks, that does not have any toxic or artificial perfumes.

5. Using White Light Meditation

Science continues to prove that meditation is a powerful healing practice. You can use a very easy and short meditation to protect yourself from psychic attacks. During such a meditation, close your eyes, calm the breath, and then image in the mind’s eye a bright white light forming a protective shield all around your body and any other person or object that you want to safeguard. It is up to you how long you keep your eyes closed and how bright your light will grow, and as you open your eyes continue with the meditation by trusting that your white light will continue to surround, protect and comfort you.

6. Cleansing Shower or Bath

The physical action of taking a shower or bath, with the right intention set in your mind, can help wash away negative energy. Similar to the white light meditation, image all of the negative energy lifting off each part of your body as you submerge into your bath or as shower water hits your skin. Baths also allow for the use of essential oils, Epsom salt, crystals and flower petals, for additional healing.

After you’ve completed your cleansing in the water, apply essential oils to dried skin. You can use some of the oils mentioned above, or other calming oils that benefit the skin such as lavender or ylang ylang. Mixing a few drops of essential oil into your favorite lotion or with fractionated coconut oil is also a nice option.

7. Mantras

Words, even if only spoken in your mind, have a powerful effect in creating your reality. When spoken out-loud, words and sounds can have an even more profound effect because they create vibrations that interact with your energetic body, helping it to fall into harmony or disharmony.

Chanting the following mantras repeatedly may help cleanse you of negative energy:

  • KRIM (pronounced “kreem”) – Used to stimulate the lower chakras of the body and begin purifying the body.
  • HUM (pronounced “hoom”) – Used to break down negativity and spread positivity and vitality through the body.
  • LAM (pronounced “lam”) – Used to cleanse impurities that have collected in your body and clearing any energy blockages preventing your prana from flowing freely through all your energy channels.

You can also create your own mantra with phrases and words that resonate with you and help you shed all negativity. Another option is practicing a spoken Metta loving kindness meditation which will release a wave of positivity that can be extremely healing. See the example below.

metta-meditation

8. Sounds

Similar to chanting mantras, sounds of chimes, bells and gongs have been used in practices such as yoga to dispel negative spirits. In the modern world, wind chimes are known for their relaxing effect on a person. The vibrations created by sounds of chimes and bells resonate through the air breaking up stagnant and negative energies. They also vibrate your energetic body and attune you to different frequencies, strengthening your psyche and spiritual power.

9. Amulets

Amulets, trinkets and talismans, with the specific purpose of protecting the human spirit, are most common in religious traditions, including items such as the Christian cross and rosary and the Muslim hamsa. These types of symbols are believed to hold great power, but similar to crystals, they react o your intentions. If you believe an item is worthless, then it will offer you no protection.

from:    http://www.wakingtimes.com/2015/04/16/9-ways-to-protect-yourself-from-negative-energies/9/

Talk to Your Body for Healing

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Your Cells Are Listening: How Talking To Your Body Helps You Heal

By on September 10, 2015

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By Therese Wade 

“Every part of your body has its own consciousness or its own soul.” These transformative words, spoken by indigenous medicine women, began my journey within to discover the extraordinary healing capacity of the human body.

When this perspective was introduced to me, I was suffering from a severe chronic pain disorder. I suddenly imagined incorporating this concept into my meditation routine. I thought, Can my body hear me…can I talk to it to gain its cooperation in healing this condition?

That night, after reaching a state of deep calm through meditation, I inwardly engaged my body in a heartfelt conversation, with hope, but having no idea what to expect. After about one hour of this focused communication, something amazing happened. My tissues began to respond. Connective tissue pulled and stretched apart layers of scar tissue. Nerves fired and my calf muscles began to perform flexion and extension exercises independently of my conscious control. As this response continued, one of my calf muscles that had become paralyzed by the neuropathic condition — diagnosed as Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy — came back to life as electric-like jolts shot through the area.

My heart pounded as I realized that the path to my freedom from this condition had finally begun. With a background in acupuncture and Oriental medicine, I knew too well how prevalent chronic pain is in this country and I wondered what the implications of this phenomenon could mean to so many others who were suffering. As I continued to make progress with my condition, I organized my approach into a system that I could teach to clients and shifted my professional focus to hypnotherapy.

When instructing my clients, I explain that a regular meditation practice is necessary to train the brain to enter alpha and theta brain wave states. While in these states, communication between the conscious mind and the physical body is dramatically enhanced. I have found that when communicating, there are three key steps to gaining the cooperation of the body:

  • Approach your body with genuine compassion, understanding that it is made up of conscious cells who experience emotions.
  • Build trust by engaging your body in mental conversations about your desire for the two of you to cooperate and overcome the ailment.
  • Allow changes in the conversation by using different thoughts and words that elicit spontaneous elevated emotions.

From my experience, the above guidelines are necessary to achieve dynamic healing responses in the body. I recently came across a very similar set of factors that were discovered by researcher Cleve Backster, who spent 36 years studying biocommunication in plant, animal and human cells. He referred to these factors as real intent, attunement, and spontaneity.[1]

Backster, formerly an interrogation specialist for the CIA, wrote about the defining moment which led him to his real work in this world, in his book Primary Perception.[2] This moment occurred one February morning in 1966 when he decided to monitor the Dracaena plant in his lab utilizing polygraph equipment. He attached the electrodes to a leaf and began to think about ways that he might induce a surge in electrical activity in the plant. In humans this surge in electrical activity is associated with intense emotions. He suddenly imagined burning the electroded leaf. The same instant this idea entered his mind, the polygraph pen shot to the top of the chart showing an extreme reaction on the part of the plant. Amazed, he walked to his secretary’s desk to retrieve a set of matches while pondering the possibility that this plant was somehow detecting the force of human intention.

When he returned with the matches, the plant was still showing the same high level reaction which would interfere with tracking additional changes on the chart. Backster decided to “remove the threat” by returning the matches to the desk. At this point, the chart displayed a downward trend as the plant apparently began to calm down.[3] When Backster attempted to repeat the same results by pretending that he was going to burn the plant, there was no reaction. The plant seemed to sense the difference between real and artificial intent. He eventually discovered that plants become attuned to their primary care takers, responding to both their positive and negative emotions and to their return after being away for a time.[4] Chart findings also showed that plants prioritize the emotions of their primary care takers over the emotions of others nearby.

Backster later expanded his research to include testing human cells for signs of consciousness. He collected white blood cells from human donors, electroded them in a test tube and then recorded the cells’ reactions as the donors experienced different emotional states. He found that spontaneous emotions were necessary in order to elicit an electrical reaction in the cells. For instance, if a donor forced herself to feel an emotion, the cells would not respond. However, when she received a distressing phone call from her daughter, the cells reacted significantly.[5]

He noted that distance seemed to be irrelevant in these experiments. For example, a donor left his electroded cells behind in the lab, then kept a detailed log of any stressful emotions experienced on his trip home to another state, such as missing a turn on the freeway, standing in a long line at the airport, and the take-off of his plane. Later, his logged incidents compared with the chart recording showed strong correlations between the timing of the stressful events and the electrical reactions in his cells. The chart became quiet again when he arrived home and went to sleep.[6]

These experiments were conducted while using equipment that screened out electromagnetic radiation — the usual energies used for information transmission. The cells behaved as if the screens weren’t there, suggesting that this communication is carried by a field still unidentified by conventional science.[7] Some scientists believe that the further development of quantum physics may help guide us to understand this field that communicates emotional intent between living things.[8] Quantum Entanglement is a process where two particles of matter which have interacted with each other, still behave as if they are connected after being separated by many miles. When an energetic change is made to the properties (position, momentum and rotational spin) of one of the particles, the properties of the other distant particle will change at the same instant.

This scientific phenomenon and the research of Cleve Backster, point to the Eastern concept of oneness — the view that all of nature is interdependent. Ancient cultures understood this interconnection as a living universal energy field that sustains life while guiding the evolution of consciousness throughout the universe. The meditation techniques involved in my practice bring the mind into attunement with this field. Energy from this field is then focused into a physical healing event through clear intention — delivered by means of a conversation that evokes spontaneous emotions — and attunes the physical body to the conscious mind. This method which I call Antara (Sanskrit for within), enables one to experience the raw creative healing ability generated by an alliance of the mind and body with this living universal energy field.

Therese Wade received her Master of Science Degree in Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine from Bastyr University in 2003. Her combined experience with Chinese medicine, shamanic studies, kundalini meditation and hypnotherapy are integrated within her approach to mind–body–spirit medicine. Please visit AntaraHealingArts.com for more information.

from:    http://expandedconsciousness.com/2015/09/10/your-cells-are-listening-how-talking-to-your-body-helps-you-heal/