Clear as Quartz

The out-of-body experience recreated in the lab

There is a very interesting news story today on the BBC website about the out-of-body experience recreated - in a lab. Basically, research volunteers have experienced seeing themselves from outside their bodies through the help of science - using virtual reality goggles to con the brain into thinking that the body was located elsewhere.

Clearly, the research will make us ask a whole lot of questions around whether the out-of-body phenomenon is a spiritual one or a physical one - nothing but an illusion in the brain, or a near-death experience related to a separation of the soul from the body.

Lovebites from an octopus?

Not as dubious as it sounds, but I've been cupped! And yesterday, Soul Coach Alison Levesley was the person responsible for introducing to me to this ancient Chinese therapy involving the placement of what look like little glass fishbowls over my back, to try and break down some of the tensions in the tissues.

Now, because of my work as a journalist and within PR, I tend to spend a lot of time sat at my desk on a computer. As anyone knows, too much of a bad thing is not very good. The upshot is that I end up with rock solid shoulders, sometimes in great pain, and as Alison noticed, even a tendency to hunch over to my left side because there was is much tension pulling me that way.

The Oracle of the Teabag

Thinking back to the Buddhist weekend I've just had, while not only serving as a sufficient form of punishment for my long-suffering teenager (who would have preferred a weekend gaming online but is currently banned from the computer), it was also the occasion where we discovered The Oracle of the Teabag. Hee hee.

Looking at an empty teacup with a cold and damp teabag-on-a-string left inside it, I was telling my son how pretty much any slightly heavy object on a cord or chain of some kind could be used as a pendulum. So it seemed like a good idea to consult the teabag. Oh yes, and what a chuckle that was.

More to Life Than This

According Peter McNab on his very enlightening site More to Life Than This, "People seem to be searching for something else in life that will bring back the meaning to their lives that the material has failed to manifest."

I would say that kind of thinking was the trigger that brought me to the point of where I am currently at, in trying to learn new things on far more complex and inward levels - although even as a wee nipper, I've always been a person set on digging deep and finding out what really makes me tick.

Peter is one of the country's top Master NLP trainers, and I have been fortunate enough to collaborate with him on a number of occasions in different areas of my work. On his site, he says that many people are asking the question "Is there more to life than this?" and he argues that people are searching for the things that will bring that meaning back (or in for the first time, I might suggest).

A Buddhist weekend for two

Was I out on the lash last weekend with my friends sweating it in a club until 3.30am? Nope. I was on a basic Budhhist course run at the Tara Buddhist Meditation Centre in Derbyshire. It was a last minute decision, probably cemented by the fact that my son was in trouble at school in the week and I felt that dragging him along would be suitable punishment (he's 15 - what do you think?).

Mind you, my club nights are very rare nowadays, so it wasn't as if I was pining to be on a podium. I think I just wanted to simply find out more, and seeing as it is my quest now to follow a journey of self-discovery, it seemed like a reasonable way to spend a weekend.

Out there could be in

I remember meeting my friend and colleague Graeme Waterfield about 4 years ago, when he came to work at the young people’s drug project that I used to be employed at (before I made the dedicated leap into journalism). I found him mediating in the store room cupboard and thought “Hello, what a weirdo!”

Still, I’d always been interested in seeking some kind of enlightenment for myself and even though I thought Graeme was a little bit ‘out there’ (he actually isn’t, but I was a little bit ‘in there’ at the time), I was interested to find out more about his spiritual practices.