HEALTH AND WELLNESS

HARD DRUGS AND HALLLUCINATIONS It is said that Socrates was guided by singular inspirations and thoughts which on a occasion took the form of audible voices. When he was about forty years old he is supposed to have had trance-like states in which he would maintain a standing posture for hours. He stood motionless from early morning on one day until sunrise on the next through a whole night when there was a very hard frost. Today this behavior would be considered a sign of serious mental illness, and even in his own time Socrates came to be considered a criminal. Yet mystics through the ages have related the inspirational experience of divine sights and sounds, and they often undertook to open themselves to such experience in intensive and sometimes prolonged periods of concentration and meditation. Hallucinations are imaging of the mind which has become fixed in intensity and interest. When that mental imaging is under control, it can result in the most profoun

                                       A sniffing test may help in the early diagnosis of diseases such as Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s. A failing sense of smell appears early in the progression of Parkinson’s disease and is among the most common symptoms. A practical method of testing the level of deterioration in a patient’s sense of smell has now been developed. While the more obvious Parkinson’s symptoms, such as tremors and muscular rigidity, appear at a later stage. Dysfunction in the sense of smell can be detected months or even years earlier, thanks to newly developed sniffing test. This opens the way for treatment that may delay the progression of this presently incurable disease.                                                                      

                                [1] DOGS FORESEE EPILEPTIC FITS? Some dogs that have been household pets for more than a year can foresee epileptic attacks in the children with whom they live. Researchers reached this conclusion after carrying out a study of 45 families. Several parents with epileptic children noticed that prior to an attack; their dog began to behave in a “peculiar way.” It would force the young one to sit down or would lean against the child’s side so that if he fell, the dog would break his fall.                                 [2] CHILDHOOD TRAUMA LINKED TO HEART DISEASE   Childhood experiences of physical or psychological hardship increase the child’s risk of suffering from heart disease later on in life. This conclusion was reached by researchers in Atlanta, Georgia, and San Diego, California, U.S.A., who examined the medical records of 17,337 adults. Science News explains that the particip

                                         A good liar will look in the eye and speak in a strong, clear voice. Do not expect manifestations of “the Pinocchio syndrome” in a good liar, that is, blinking, stammering, gulping, and the like.   The best liars are sociopaths, people without a conscience. Polygraph and voice-stress analyzer tests are useless with them. Emotional and unsophisticated people, on the other hand, can “flunk” a polygraph test and still have told the truth. Anxiety and anger can cause the wrong kinds of blips on the graph and be interpreted as lies.   Screening your prospective employees by making them take the “lie detector” test is not a terribly good idea. Nor is the test effective for internal investigations.   Some people are born liars, with a pathological compulsion to subvert the truth. Given enough time, these people invariably reveal themselves. Be wary of people who talk too much; this is frequently a symptom of the compulsive liar.

  In the west, the names like Michael Maier and Paracelsus appear over and over in the history of alchemy. In the lands of India and Tibet, the name Nagarjuna appears. There, and even further east, his name inspires the same thoughts as do Aristotle, Galen, and Aquinas in the west. Nagarjuna is honored as philosopher, mystic, physician, alchemist, and saint.   He was born around the year A.D.100 in southern India, in the area now known as Andhra. Like many early saints and mystics, details of his life are sketchy, many of them surrounded by mystery and legend.   Perhaps this is even more the case with regard to India, because prior to the middle Ages, she had few historians. Consequently, many aspects of Nagarjuna’s life are still hotly debated in all the legends or not, one cannot doubt their impression on the minds of millions in Asia, even today.         The earliest datable biography of Nagarjuna comes from Kumarjiva, a Buddhist missionary in China who lived i