tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7294505416127496842.post4308922610847778481..comments2024-03-25T14:09:59.347-05:00Comments on Augoeides: The Bones of John the Baptist?Scott Stenwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12389664381513219613noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7294505416127496842.post-29794627846485000692012-06-20T09:10:22.202-05:002012-06-20T09:10:22.202-05:00I actually think there's a fair amount of expe...I actually think there's a fair amount of experimental evidence that "schizotypal personality" as described by Sapolsky and magical/mystical aptitude have little to do with one another. Advanced meditators exhibit high-frequency gamma brainwaves when engaged in practice, whereas scans of schizophrenics show an overall reduction in neural firing rate concentrated in a few key areas. Similarly, spiritual practitioners show increased tonic (that is, semi-regular) brainwave patterns in the theta range during waking consciousness, while there isn't much difference in that regard between schizophrenics and normal people. So if you look at functional scans, mystics and schizophrenics have practically nothing in common in terms of how their brains appear to work.<br /><br />There's an enormous difference between believing that you're in communication with deities or spirits and actually being in communication with them. However, it's pretty difficult for non-magicians to tell the two states apart. If schizotypals were once seen as religious figures, it may very well not be that they had much in common with genuine mystics, but rather that they were mistaken for them. Ken Wilber has a term for this sort of misunderstanding that plays an important role in his model of consciousness - the Pre/Trans Fallacy. The idea is that pre-rational states (which is where I would classify schizophrenia) and trans-rational states (genuine mystical realization) are hard to distinguish from each other. This is because even though the two states are fundamentally different, both appear irrational and can produce behaviors that make little sense to outside observers.Scott Stenwickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12389664381513219613noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7294505416127496842.post-39346083206742181212012-06-19T16:41:19.048-05:002012-06-19T16:41:19.048-05:00http://boingboing.net/2009/06/06/evolution-religio...http://boingboing.net/2009/06/06/evolution-religion-s.html<br /><br />Is about how those with schizotypal and schizophrenia are talented and useful magicians when they have half the gene set, but are useless to the real world when they have both. Having once met a schizophrenic I think that this idea has some serious basis to it. It wouldn't mean, of course, that to do magic you would need some of schizotypal genes, but it might help.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09543062411623956606noreply@blogger.com