BY DAVID RICKEY and RICK LEED — As we evolve, both scientific researchers and esoteric healers have advanced new therapies to treat our bodies and our minds but when we first hear of some of them we make a snap judgement that this sounds too wacky to be legit. We use words like voodoo medicine or magical thinking.

Think back to examples like quinine and willow bark — the former a tribal medicine used by Peruvian Indians, the latter an ‘old wives’ remedy. In the modern age, the first was prescribed by doctors as a treatment for malaria and the second in derivative form as aspirin.

Hundreds of health technologies — from acupuncture to hypnosis and artificial heart transplants to the freezing of cord-blood — were once thought to be voodoo and later proven to possess medical value. In that last example, we first read sketchy sounding reports a decade ago that people were having blood extracted from umbilical cords of their newborns cyrogenically frozen so that, in the event of illnesses like diabetes, doctors could later harvest miracle cells in the amniotic fluid for gene therapy.

It was a new science that few could wrap their heads around.

Saving your cells

Many laughed, and called it voodoo or exploitation of anxious, vulnerable new parents. But those who laughed and passed on that opportunity, lost out — or at least their kids did. Now radical new research is giving those parents a second chance. Will they laugh again when they read about a company called StemSave? It says that the promise of medical miracles from stem cells is locked within your family teeth: StemSave is generating a lot of chatter by harvesting the wisdom of DNA from wisdom teeth.

According to research published in peer-reviewed journals, the stem cells in our teeth are among the most powerful in the human body.  Stem cells from teeth replicate at a faster rate, and for a longer period of time, than do stem cells harvested from other tissues.

Wisdom teeth have smart cells

The irony is that living stem cells found within extracted teeth are routinely discarded by dentists every day as medical waste; In the next decade, perhaps any dentist who does that will be seen as out-dated as GP’s who once-upon-a-time suggested cigarettes as a sedative. StemSave enables you to save these cells for future use in developing medical treatments for your family.

Other expressions of the same ethos abound. RegeneRx, with the support of the National Institutes of Health, is making huge strides in applications that can turn cells on — and change the course of certain diseases.

Healing “technowledgies”

In the “soft” healing sciences, conventional institutions on the cutting-edge like Kaiser Permanente and Dr. Michael Benson’s Mind/Body Medical Institute at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston are breaking new ground in incorporating the last technowledgies (our word) in Bio- and Psycho-Spiritual medicine.

Closer to home, check out our own teachers, like Vaishali or many of the articles in the Soul’s Code Science and The Brain category.

What do Spirituality and Science have to do with the Big Bang?

St. Paul, throughout his letters, disparaged the “flesh.” A much more enlightened writer, Teilhard de Chardin, said that we are Spiritual beings on a Human journey. One way or another, we are “stuck” in this fleshly body as long as we inhabit this planet. The “Good News” is that we now know a whole lot more about our “flesh,” and how it works then either of these two teachers. As our knowledge of being human evolves so do our treatments for these human bodies.

Being human is an amazing position to be in. We have evolved the ability to look at ourselves, our souls and bodies, and make ever more wise decisions. No other animal has come this far. In the last century we have discovered the interplay between our thoughts and our bodies, and we have uncovered some of the deepest secrets of our very flesh, even these genes which direct our growth and govern natural selection.

But at the same time, traditional medicine has reached a kind of limit as to what it can do to enhance or correct human existence. Our western hospital-health insurance model has become a bureaucratized medical industrial complex.

And it becomes more dysfunctional as it seeks to wrestle with rising costs, demands and diminishing resources, both in terms of care and the ability to embrace new therapies. Added to that is the “unevolved” mentality of some practitioners and funders, complicated by the spiritually unenlightened resistence to advanced study of the human being. There is the perceived notion that humans are somehow sacred and separate rather than just the latest stage of an evolutionary process going back to the big-bang.

There is no separation

Instead, we believe that the whole process is sacred. Divine Wisdom is inexorably unfolding in the physical reality of our universe. That deep wisdom needs to be applied to the advancements in genetic research and psycho-spiritual awareness.

The capability of tuning into that wisdom is part of the very process evolutionary progress in which we partake.

The final question: Will we evolve fast enough to heal ourselves and the Planet? Time will tell, but will we be here for the telling?

David Rickey is a psychotherapist, Episcopal priest and Soul’s Code co-founder; Rick Leed is a media mogul, investor in health sciences and chairman of Soul’s Code.

BY DAVID RICKEY —Einstein said that the level of consciousness that created a particular problem cannot solve the said problem.

A hot new book by sociobiologist Rebecca Costa, The Watchman’s Rattle: Thinking our way out of extinction, illustrates Einstein’s point by documenting how our rate of social and technical change is out-stripping evolution.

Look at the economy: we have developed complex computer programs that can trade stocks in milliseconds. We have developed virtual ways of making money, and created a subculture of the super-rich. At the same time, we have  had a largely negative impact on the planet.

When we human beings come now to confront these problems, we resort to ideologies rather than reach into the most evolved recesses of our brains to solve them. Without working on our thought patterns, we will continue to fail at finding solutions.

Man versus the machine

Costa gives us insight into why this is the case. Our brains have not evolved enough to deal with the complex world in which we now live. How many of us can wrap our minds around even one of the major issues facing the world today? Instead we feel a mixture of bewilderment, frustration and anger.

When this frustration rises, our brains automatically revert to prior belief systems that seemed to work before, but then block us from having insight into more creative solutions.

In North Africa, we see the “Arab Spring”: people beginning to rise up against the governments that oppress them. But many are asking why that isn’t happening in the more developed countries.

The Tea Party, for example, is merely an attempt to push an old ideology as a reflex to a time of fear and loathing.

Civilization’s most vital organ

Canadian psychiatrist Norman Doidge, who wrote The Brain That Changes Itself, has proven that we are capable of rewiring our own minds. Through concentrated effort — meditation, for example — we can change the pathways and the way we think.

Costa suggests that we can work to develop a higher capacity of insight and ability, and discover new solutions. This takes effort and courage. It requires the ability to risk letting go of the familiar.

This is not the ego’s strong suit. Indeed we can trace much of the problems of this complex world to the ego being unwilling to consider solutions that are not observably self-serving.

A universe coded with intentention

But here’s another area of hope. As Robert Wright points out in The Evolution Of God, there seems to be much evidence of an intentionality in the universe toward insight that is directed by human “self-interest.” By looking at the larger picture, we discover that it is in our best interest to care about others’ well-being, and the well-being of our planet. Even the pain of our present predicaments may be (and I believe are) the way the Universe is pushing us toward more egalitarian solutions.

Evolution is painfully slow. But we can speed up the pace by working on our brains, literally doing brain exercises and consciously choosing to step back and observe the larger picture. Indeed, if the Wisdom of the Universe is behind all this, then we have an amazing ally for this process.

So instead of feeling overwhelmed by present events, it may be much more beneficial to see them as encouraging signs of support for the work we are here to do.

David Rickey is an Episcopal priest, Soul’s Code co-founder and counselor in San Francisco who does a weekly ministry at a residence for the elderly in northern California. Follow David on Twitter.

PAUL KAIHLA — Apple isn’t the only Silicon Valley anchor-tenant that knows how to execute a stealth launch. For Google, though, this one wasn’t about products — and it seems that the world’s largest search engine and online ad agency prefers to keep this news quiet, even post-launch. Last summer with zero fanfare, Google joined the human potential movement. The vehicle: Google University, which is in a building one street down from the main Googleplex in Mountain View.

One of the institution’s four departments: The School of Personal Growth.

Inspired by the work of psychologists like Daniel Goleman (Emotional Intelligence) and figures who have taught at California’s fabled spiritual retreat, Esalen Institute, the existence of the new school leaked out during a conference at the end of 2008 at San Francisco’s Westin Hotel (Soul’s Code was a sponsor).

“Google has always had a global vision, and wants to change the world from the inside out,” says Monika Broecker, a leadership coach and therapist from Germany who was an architect of the program. “You need to have inner peace to make peace in the world.”

Broecker, who left Google to start her own Center for Personal Growth, doesn’t speak for the company — nor has Google ever issued a press release about the startling new program. But one of its founding fathers, an early Google engineer and practicing Buddhist, Chade-Meng Tan (left, with Barack Obama), appeared in a panel discussion at the conference, which was a gathering of psychologists, neuroscientists and Buddhists associated with the Dalai Lama under the banner, Happiness & Its Causes.

Tan suggested that Google’s School of Personal Growth is a futuristic model for every workplace. “Google wants to help Googlers grow as human beings on all levels,” Tan said in his presentation. “Emotional, mental, physical and ‘beyond the self’.”

(This) is why Google University instituted the School of Personal Growth, perhaps the first of its kind in a large corporation. We don’t just pamper Googlers, we want to help them fulfill their full human potential.

But Google did not permit Tan, whom the New York Times once nicknamed the firm’s “in-house Zelig”, to give interviews about the stealth spiritual school at the conference — and you have to be a Google employee to access its curriculum through the corporate intranet.

The school’s courses fall into four baskets: mental development; emotional development; holistic health and well-being; and a Buddhist notion, ‘beyond the self’. So far, Googlers have taken classes with titles like “The Neuroscience of Empathy” and “Search Inside Yourself.” The latter includes an introductory lecture by Stanford neuroscientist, Philippe Goldin, and counts Zoketsu Norman Fischer as an instructor. A poet and Zen priest, Fischer taught at San Francisco’s Zen Center for several years and has led Googlers in a full-day mindfulness meditation retreat. He recently appeared on Oprah.

Engineers can only make up 50 percent of any class; they are cross-fertilized with a mix of marketers, managers and employees from sales. The company’s strategy here is to boost the brainstorming powers of Google’s best and brightest, as well as their powers of self-examination. “It’s very effective because studies have proven that if people are relaxed and open, they won’t repeat the same ideas and mistakes,” added Broecker. “They are more creative.”

Though you can’t participate in Google’s offerings unless you work there, you *can* experience it through Broecker’s start-up, which reflects the curriculum she helped set up at Google — and open to the public.

Her similarly-named, Center for Personal Growth, offers private coaching sessions, workshops and consulting services to other companies that want to mimic Google’s personal growth program.  “At Google, I had a dream job,” says Broecker (above). “I built the School of Personal Growth within Google University and it’s strategy. Now I want to bring this mission to the whole world.”

DAVID RICKEY — The ego exists only to function in relationship to the whole system, and the ego functions best when it is consciously aware of itself as part of a larger system.

Inspiration derives from the word, spirit. But it is the latest breakthroughs in science, not necessarily spirituality, that give us the clearest prism for viewing the way inspiration is actually created. Malcolm Gladwell’s profile of Nathan Myhrvold in The New Yorker — In the Air: Who says big ideas are rare?— describes a number of instances where two or more people develop almost identical ideas or inventions pretty much simultaneously.
My immediate reaction is that this is evidence for what is called “non-local mind” or “non-local intelligence.”

Larry Dossey

Deepak Chopra and others point out that what seems to be “happening” in my apparently personal mind isn’t really occurring there but, rather, in a “Mind” that is a property of the universe. My mind is more like a receptor that is participating in “Mind”.

Consciousness extends beyond my own brain. A recent book, The Intention Experiment by . . .

Lynne McTaggart

. . . documents a number of experiments that illustrate how intention affects “external” reality. There seems to be a “mind field” that links individual minds to form a kind of “web of consciousness”.
From this perspective, what Malcolm Gladwell describes as “multiples” in his New Yorker piece are really examples where various minds at various places are working on the same question, and there is an implicit communication between them that leads them all to come to similar conclusions.

Teilhard de Chardin

Perhaps there is also greater “mind” — something like the Noosphere propounded in the early 20th century by a Jesuit priest and paleontologist who took part in the discovery of Peking Man.

As I understand it, everything has a degree of consciousness. What we call “inanimate objects,” like rocks, may have only a small level — and dolphins, humans and others have “higher” levels.

These sources of consciousness radiate a field beyond themselves that produces an interconnected web of consciousness that grows synergistically, and then “feeds back” to individual “minds” that are capable of receiving.

As individuals contemplate an idea, they can tap into this larger sphere of consciousness, experiencing a kind of “zap” of inspiration or insight. When members of a “think tank” collaborate, as Gladwell documents, they are facilitating a synergy of fields of intelligence that produce unusual levels of insight.

Gladwell also points out that this “multiples” effect does not seem to happen in the arts, such as music or painting. But perhaps great artists tap into a similar mind-field that is generated by, if you will, “songs of the heart” or awareness of beauty — and then, in turn, are inspired to create expressions of it by “distilling” the mind-field into concrete examples. They’re heralded as great artists because their works resonate with the hearts and minds which constitute the fabric from which the threads of the creation were pulled.

As each of us “individually,” consciously works on a question or — more importantly — tries to expand our awareness, we contribute to the evolution of this web of consciousness.

When communities, such as faith groups or even nations, work at expanded awareness, they have an even greater effect on the web of consciousness, which also “feeds back” to stimulate others to expand. So spiritual growth can happen at an accelerated rate. Of course, the opposite is also possible, that groups and even nations can slow down the growth rate.

The avant garde philosopher: Ken Wilber

Wilber talks about a “Spiritual center of gravity,” a phenomenon where expanded consciousness can actually “pull upwards” on less conscious beings, but also exert a downward pull on individuals who are seeking further growth. Fortunately, it seems that once expansion has occurred, it is very unlikely that regression will happen.

There is also evidence that once a scientific breakthrough has been made in one place, it becomes easier to duplicate it in other places around the globe — the so-called “Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon” (acknowledging that the story at the source of that particular title has been discredited by some).

Rupert Sheldrake

Sheldrake describes this phenomenon in terms of “morphogenetic” fields:

Briefly, the theory goes as follows: Morphogenetic fields carry information only (no energy) and are available throughout time and space without any loss of intensity after they have been created. They are created by the patterns of physical forms . . . They help guide the formation of later similar systems. And finally, a newly forming system “tunes into” a previous system by having within it a “seed” that resonates with a similar seed in the earlier form.

Thus, from this perspective,[for example] the DNA in the genes of a living system (like an oak tree) does not carry all the information needed to shape that system, but it can act as a “tuning seed” that tunes in the morphogenetic fields of previous systems of the same type. Morphogenetic fields are thus the repository of what might be described as genetic habits.

In addition, these same concepts can be used to explain some of the mysteries about human memory. In effect, our brains are not so much libraries as they are sending-and-receiving-stations that leave a continuous trail of experience imprinted in morphogenetic fields, and then “recall” previous experiences by tuning into that trail.

If these ideas are correct, then the “storehouse of memory” is not the least bit private since morphogenetic fields are universally available and continue to exist regardless of what happens to their original source. The only thing that makes our mental processes seem private is that we naturally resonate most strongly with our own past mental states. In other words, each of us broadcasts on a unique channel to which, generally, no one else listens. Yet in principle, someone else could tune into “your” memory and thoughts, and indeed, in practice, we do – as the common experience of “reading” another person’s mind attests.

From: Morphogenetic Fields And Beyond

New research is undermining old ideas of separation

by Robert Gilman, including an interview with Rupert Sheldrake

The key to all of this is the ability to transcend apparent “separateness.”

All spiritual paths teach that the ego’s illusion that I am a separate being is the great barrier to the evolution of consciousness. Whether it be individuals, tribes, nations, or even species, the idea of separateness is falling away, albeit with great resistance.

Scientific research, as well as social, political and economic reality, tells us that we are, as St. Paul’s says, “Members of one body.” Nothing happens independently. All the wars and most of the problems that plague us on this planet could be addressed if we acquiesced to this one shift in awareness. Perhaps we should stop arguing over having, “In God We Trust,” on our currency — and pay more attention to the little words on the eagle’s banner E Pluribus Unum: “Out of many, one”.

All spiritual paths seem to be teaching the same fundamental point: Get past your own ego to get to true wisdom. When we are able to quiet our own “mind” we then can tune into the greater mind. The problem with ego isn’t its existence but its dominance.

When I transcend my ego for a time, tap into the great mind-field of intelligence to gather insights, then let my ego again process those insights into specific solutions to the issues at hand or create a work of art that has my unique stamp on it, then I have done my part to contribute to the whole.

Not only have I solved a problem or created something of beauty, I have also generated new “quanta of intelligence” that enter the great mind to contribute to someone else’s insights. The importance of the ego is its ability to process and make finite. The illusion of the ego is its thinking that that is the beginning and the endpoint.

The truth is that the ego exists only to function in relationship to the whole system, and that the ego functions best when it is consciously aware of itself as part of a larger system.

The purpose of the various spiritual paths is to teach the “technologies of transcendence” – the means for accessing the great mind-field. The problem with most religion is one of “ego”, the belief that its teaching is an endpoint, rather than simply one process. Hopefully we are beginning to break down the boundaries and barriers that separate religious practices so that we can share the wisdom of the technologies they hold. May it be so.

David Rickey is an Episcopal priest, Soul’s Code co-founder and counselor in San Francisco who does a weekly ministry at a residence for the elderly in northern California. Follow David on Twitter.

MICHELLE MORRA-CARLISLE: “Sociopaths can’t feel psychic pain but they can feel physical pain,” says narrator Dexter as on-screen Dexter plucks a hair – with gusto – from the head of a likely serial rapist and killer. It’s for a routine DNA test but the viewer, along with Dexter, feels pleasure when the bad guy says, “Ow!”

The bad guy somehow is not Dexter Morgan, hence the mastery of this Showcase series now in its fifth season. A man with an irrepressible urge to kill, Dexter (played by Michael C. Hall) is not an antagonist for the hero to catch. He is the hero.

From Enron and Wall Street graft to the White House — both occupants on the inside like Dick Cheney and crashers from the outside like the reality-show Salahis — psychopathic behavior in the world around us seems to be at a collective high. Dexter serves as a sympathetic benchmark for the mental miasma in our midst.

The show’s creators have rigged it so that we feel for, even cheer for Dexter, and we’ve taken the bait. Sure he’s a serial killer, but that’s okay — he only kills other serial killers. Not only is he not so bad, he’s an unsung hero. The bad guys Dexter kills fit the classic criteria of psychopaths or sociopaths (terms often used interchangeably). This begs the question: Does Dexter?

Whether or not he is a true psychopath has become a favorite online debate as well as the subject of a new book, The Psychology of Dexter, edited by Bella DePaulo, PHD. Medical professionals and fans tackle a question even Dexter himself can’t seem to answer: Just how void is his conscience, really?

Bad vs. Ugly

Dexter’s victims are aggressive, have a complete disregard for the wellbeing of others and feel no remorse for their crimes. Their whole world revolves around filling their own urges.

Right from the first episode Dexter describes himself as unfeeling but confesses he has a soft spot for his sister, Deb (played by Hall’s off-screen wife Jennifer Carpenter). To us he presents himself as a fraud when entering a relationship with wife Rita (Julie Benz), but finds himself capable of feeling – feeling sexually aroused by her, feeling tender towards her, even feeling protective of her and her children. This cuddle-bear of a father and quirky blood spatter analyst is the Dexter we grow so fond of, even though his antics are interspersed with the occasional “fix” where he quells his addiction by driving a stake through the heart of a less lovable killer.

True psychopaths are not lovable. According to Robert Hare’s Psychopathy Checklist, widely used as a diagnosis tool, they lack in compassion and empathy. They can’t live in social harmony. They are aggressive, grandiose, narcissistic, socially deviant, impulsive and irresponsible.

Dexter  is the first to admit he is low on emotional IQ, yet he is anything but grandiose. Like a psychopath, he gets antsy when too much time between satisfying his urges. But he is not a true social deviant. He is not sexually promiscuous or perverted. And losing his wife to a slaughter by one of his victims he blames himself – exhibiting something pretty close to remorse. This season, he even sloppily forgets his me-me code to help another person (the new woman in his life, played by Julia Stiles).

We’ve seen worse. Canadians recently got a glimpse into the mind of David Russell Williams, a murderer, serial rapist and army colonel convicted of 88 crimes and dealt two life sentences in October, 2010. Over the years his 82 home invasions progressed from stealing and photographing himself in little girls’ underwear to multiple rape and, finally, murder. Aside from the fact that Dexter Morgan wouldn’t wear a training bra, he also would never awaken a woman asleep with her baby with a blow to the head and then rape her.

The show couldn’t work if Dexter met all the criteria of a psychopath. Viewers accept him as borderline, however, or at the very least a narcissist like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. Like them, Dexter is different from a true psychopath because he identifies with a cause, which he also conveniently uses to justify his aggressive means to an end.

Not all psychopaths are serial killers – some simply terrorize or leach off their families or are mini-dictators within their businesses. Nor are all serial killers psychopaths. To be a serial killer and a true psychopath, as well as a beloved TV hero, probably wouldn’t fly. As yet, audiences still want justification for being deliciously entertained by brutal violence.

It’s scary when the real-world psychopaths among us, to use Robert Hare’s phrase, are scarier than a TV serial killer who chloroforms his victims, wraps them in plastic and carves them up with hunting knives.