Trepanation: A Spiritual Technology?

Trepanation is the proper term for the practice of drilling a hole in your skull. I came across this interesting blog article discussing the practice and its history.

An Illustrated History of Trepanation

Does this procedure fall under the heading of spiritual technology? One of the signs of accomplishment in the Tibetan practice of P'howa (used to transfer consciousness at the moment of death) is supposed to be an indentation forming in the skull at the point of the crown chackra, and in fact I have experienced this myself. Furthermore, some trepanned skulls have been found in India with holes made in points corresponding to the crown or third eye chackras, suggesting that the process may have been used with the intention of augmenting some sort of spiritual or psychic ability.

Nowadays trepanation enthusiasts claim that if a hole is made in the skull the volume of blood flowing through the brain can increase because it is no longer constricted by the rigid skull. They claim that this makes them more creative and intelligent, though of course the cynic in me suggests that if these people were dumb enough to drill holes in their heads their intelligence really had nowhere to go but up.

Questions you don't want to ask a Tibetan P'howa master: "Lama, can I improve my practice by using a power drill?"