Well, I'm a veteran of one of Todd's Murphy's Shakti helmets, an earlier, four-coil version that he derived from Persinger's fascinating work. We'd now call what it does Transcutaneous Magnetic Stimulation (TMS). I found its modes to do what they claimed to do, but with less persuasive "whack" than what I experienced in explorations at the Monroe Institute http://www.monroeinstitute.com/ during time about 15 years ago that I signed up to be part of their professional group on who they tried out their latest in-development binaural beat plus, audio entrainment products. 

 

Using the Shakti, the slow recommended pace of q/3week administrations brought little for me in the way of noticeable results.  It was with twice-weekly sessions for altered states that I started to have an increase in vivid lucid dreams with a few out-of-body experiences, some integrative dreams recapitulating previous psychotherapeutic work, and then mostly just floating in a very pleasant seemingly boundaryless void most similar to flotation tank work.  The lucid dreams were rarely during a Shakti session, but occurred in sleep several nights following a session.  For mental voyagers without previous work on themselves, the flinging open of the contents of the unconscious, and beyond, precipitated by any of these techniques could easily result in too much to integrate severe abreactive experiences.  A "trip-sitter" or other experienced voyager or therapist is certainly indicated for the transformationally uninitiated.  I used the relaxation program rarely, as I found it distracting to ways I was used to achieving what I thought to be relaxation on my own.  I would expect the more recent iterations to be more focused and tunable, both by the software that drives the stimulation, and by the consumer.  I found Todd to be careful, responsive to feedback, and a serious person, in this for the long term.  The Shakti is another entrain and migrate inducer of exaggerated states that some will find irrelevant, interesting, terrifying, or transformational.

 

Michael's pivotal observation about enlightenment being a more ongoing state vs.data points of exaggerated experience is important in all of this.  To what extent is enlightenment the space between experiences? To what extent are the data points of experience necessary to give definition?  As there is infinite space to explore between each cardinal number (1,2,3, etc.), does nameable history (experience) constitute these numerals that "define the space" (?"reality") that drops out during training.  Experiences, thoughts, then do not become the only defining moments of being.  The between spaces become much more present.  Is the interruption of the feedback the emergence into a cardinal number or more dense experience?   Can ZNC training be defined as training of both or all state possibilities simultaneously, experience forming and subsiding by itself or by decision, but not as THE defining moment of existence?  Those are the directions I see myself and others going as they train.

 

It was one of Karl Pribram's stunning (to me) observations upon the discovery that dark energy comprises 96% of the universe's mass, and, as Karl put it, is what is required to "hold the universe APART,"  lest it collapse into itself and create the next big bang. Marcus E. Raichle in Science magazine: (Nov. 24, 2006 314:1249) notes the Dark Energy of the brain.  He reports that 10 times more of the body's energy is devoted to the brain by weight, and 60-80% of that goes to intra-connectivty rather than just to neural transmissions, and we know very little about those workings. So event potentials that get the most study comprise only 20-30% of the action.  We get to play in the rest of the playground. 

 

 

I'm glad I had all those experiences that induced, pushed, or exaggerated certain states. Those were many years of spiritual materialism, attaching great relevance to each "trip" of traditional biofeedback, insight therapy, or intense experience. Neurofeedback's arrival amplified anything I was doing in the practice of psychology and in my own inner work. I'm also glad that now I have ZNC that has brought me to where most altered states seem to be part of every day possibilities, though in less vivid forms.  The question of whether straightaway doing ZNC could short cut all that exploration and bring me to this place "as if" I had done all that voyaging continues to interest me. To clients and others I continue to gesture arms widening from closed hands as the demonstration of the "zone of livingin the present" that doing ZNC seems to expand, meaning more is available more of the time in a stable state with fewer and fewer turbulences intruding as time goes on.  This space includes decided, or automatic inclusion of a much greater range of possibilities. 

 

As I do better using Zengar's evolving software, and become even less interventionistic in what I do in a session, there seems to happen a review, updating, rewriting, and dumping of the anachronistic data points of history and experience.  This increasingly seems to happen in a way I now call "autologous," or automatically within the individual.  Certainly all of neurofeedback work seems pointed in this direction ultimately, but my Zengar experience has pointed this out to me most vividly. 

 

Alan Bachers

 

 

 

 

On 11/28/06, John Thompson <nhtc@... > wrote:

I remember when this research was first reported some years ago.
Whilst it is not neurofeedback it is rater curious. Apparently by
stimulating parts of the brain with rotating weak electromagnetic
fields mystical experiences occur. Now it seems this technology has
been commercialized and is freely available. The fact that these
experiences can be induced raises some interesting philosophical and
ethical questions. The link below is for the website. Has anyone on
this list heard any reports arising from the use of this?

http://www.shaktitechnology.com/rotating/index.htm

Regards to all
John